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UPDATE 2023-11-01 09:46 CET: Deployment test has been successfully concluded. The site is operational.

TL;DR: On Wednesday, November 1st 2023, around 08:00UTC, we'll be conducting some changes to how Meta Stack Exchange deployments are made. As a result, you may experience intermittent disruptions to the site.

How things currently work:

Currently our deployments to MSE involve a full rebuild of the entire application. That is a time consuming process and is a factor in how fast we can get changes to our live sites.

Why that's a problem that needs fixing:

As it takes a while to build the software before deploying, it increases the mean-time-to-repair and mean-time-to-recovery in case of issues on our sites — meaning that if an issue occurs, it takes longer to fix.

How we're fixing that:

Instead of rebuilding, we will be using a deployment package that has been produced earlier in our delivery pipeline. This package has already gone through all the testing steps and by the time it gets to the deployment stage to MSE, it's been proven to be good.

Using this deployment package means that we reduce the time it takes to deploy changes to MSE.

When is this happening, and why that may cause disruptions to the service:

Wednesday, November 1st 2023, between 08:00 UTC and 09:00 UTC (EDT and PDT times here).

Despite our testing, we may have missed some obscure configuration setting that prevents the site from becoming available. In case the new approach does not work, we will revert to the current situation.

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  • 2
    Are we expecting minor issues, or things like the whole site being down?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 1:53
  • 7
    You may see a "We're down for maintenance" page while we are testing the deployment. The version of MSE that is being deployed is exactly the same so we're not expecting any functionality to break.
    – Sander Van Vliet StaffMod
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 7:22
  • 6
    Any input from those of us too aloof... as to what MSE is??
    – JeopardyTempest
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 9:40
  • 21
    @JeopardyTempest Meta Stack Exchange. This site.
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 9:46
  • 1
    Didn't stackstatus use to have such future events as well? Can't see it there now.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 20:45
  • Why has the MSE editor stopped working. Is it because I use SlimJet? Hasn't been working for at least 1.5 years.
    – Daniel Donnelly
    Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 22:15
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    @ShadowWizardIsSadAndAngry the status page does show ongoing maintenance (if there is any).
    – Sander Van Vliet StaffMod
    Commented Nov 1, 2023 at 8:56
  • @SanderVanVliet I mean future maintenance, in different section. Maybe there was in the old page, not sure. :/
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 1, 2023 at 14:16
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    @TheGhostOfGaussPossessesMe Stacks Editor? It's still in beta, see this. If it doesn't work you can start a bug report here. (I mean new question, not answer on this one.)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 1, 2023 at 14:18

1 Answer 1

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Thank you for the heads-up!

Is this change something that has ramifications for the whole network?

I'm aware that MSE is sometimes used for deploying changes as basically a production testing zone, so changes are often rolled out to MSE first before being rolled out to the rest of the network. Is this change to make deployment easier only for MSE due to its special status and higher-than-normal chance of needing a quick deployment fix, or is it going to (eventually) make deployment easier for anything rolling out to the network?

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    This change in deployment strategy will indeed be rolled out to the whole network so that we gain the advantages for all network sites. We will be verifying this on MSE first, evaluate and then do the roll-out once we are happy with the results.
    – Sander Van Vliet StaffMod
    Commented Oct 25, 2023 at 17:07
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    Good to know - thanks @Sander!
    – Mithical
    Commented Oct 25, 2023 at 17:08

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