We recently addressed issues affecting Search. 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 March 7, 2023 5:00 PM PT and March 10, 2023 11:00 AM PT, some users may have experienced difficulties while working in Box. During this time, some recently uploaded and updated documents were delayed in processing and did not appear in Search results. The issue occurred during a code change to improve Search’s processing capability. We were able to resolve the issue by removing the change and increasing the computing power of our pipeline. In addition, we have increased alerting and implemented stricter testing and more automation to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.

Analysis

At Box, we are always striving to improve the efficiency and fault tolerance of our services. The Search team implemented a change to improve the processing pipeline of documents that were uploaded to Box.

A bug went undiscovered during our automated and manual testing phases, leading to a lag in processing time. Once discovered and remediated, we immediately went about clearing the backlog of lagged items in our processing queue. This issue revealed gaps in our internal team process for such rollouts, in addition to gaps in our testing mechanisms.

Corrective Actions

The following corrective actions have been completed or are planned:

• Add in more alerting and automated processes to prevent future complications
• Long-term migration to more stable sub-systems
• Extra automation around testing rollouts for changes to the processing pipeline

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