[Major] Issue with Box Drive and Box Sync

We recently addressed issues affecting Box Drive and Box Sync. We would like to take the opportunity to further explain these issues and the steps we have taken to keep them from happening in the future.

Between 5 September 2024 02:33 and 7 September 2024 01:31 PST, some users may have experienced difficulties while working in Box. During this time, Box Drive & Box Sync were slow in recognizing that documents had been updated by other users and a new copy was needed. The issue occurred because a new software release introduced unexpected latency in a processing pipeline used in propagating update notifications. We were able to resolve the issue by reverting the software update, fixing the problem and redeploying. In addition, we have improved our monitoring processes and implemented new monitors to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.

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Analysis

Starting 5 September 2024 02:00 (PST) a software component was deployed that was not properly configured with enough threads. As a result, throughput of a processing pipeline started to slow and a queue of requests started to build. The queue was noticed and the responsible component reverted by 6 Sept 2024 12:00 (PST), but it took until 7 Sept 2024 01:31 (PST) for the backlog of requests to clear.

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Corrective Actions

Box has initiated the following corrective actions:

• Implement monitors on notification queue size
• Implement throughput monitors on downstream components

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We are continuously working to improve Box and want to make sure we are delivering the best product and user experience we can. We hope we have provided some clarity here and we would be happy to answer any questions you may still have regarding this matter. 

Sincerely,

The Box Team