Under CCP 583.340, the five year period to bring an action to trial is stayed during periods when it is impossible, impracticable or futile to bring the action to trial–even if those periods occur early in the 5-year period and the plaintiff is not thereafter diligent in seeking a trial date less than 5 years from the filing of the complaint. For these purposes, it is impossible of impracticable to bring the action to trial during a period in which the parties have entered into a settlement agreement conditional on future events which ultimately do not occur, cratering the settlement. Here, parties entered into a settlement agreement conditional on unanimous consent of the defendant LLC’s members. In computing the 5-year period to bring the case to trial, the time between the signing of the settlement agreement and its eventual demise from lack of consent should be excluded. With that period excluded, time yet remained to get the case to trial before the 5-year deadline, so it was reversible error to dismiss the case.