1472097 - Force Normandy reset its timer and run imediately at version change (upgrade/downgrade)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Normandy Client, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

During bug 1471672 testing & deployment, it come up as a good idea that if on version change / upgrade, Normandy should get its timer reset and run immediately.

Other than possible technical issues implementing the above and maybe a slight question mark in the case of Nightly, which on normal use, it gets updated twice a day, I see no obvious risks having this change implemented. 

On the positive side, it makes a lot of sense to have Normandy run at each version change:
- on version change reduces the Normandy execution wait time (currently default is 6 hours), which ensures that the client gets to filter all the recipes @ startup, keeping only those that apply to its current version.
- it reduces some of telemetry noise & gaps, since the clients that should be enrolled/unrolled from an active recipe is done immediately on version change for both upgrade/downgrade, so given a recipe is run + a version upgrade, the results can be reviewed & validated in a shorter time.
- it is extremely useful in cases where hot-fixes are delivered via Normandy for bugs which block the un-throttling of a new version.

Comment 1

[Michael Cooper [:mythmon]]

Brian: I'm thinking about implementing this for Firefox 73. I'd expect it would slightly increase server traffic. I don't expect it will drive any traffic spikes like we see with the push notifications though. Do you have any concerns?

Comment 2

[Brian Pitts]

My take is that this should be fine. Conceptually the rate from upgrade cannot be higher than the rate we see when asking all running browsers to connect. I'll verify update rate based on telemetry just to know what to expect.

Comment 3

[Michael Cooper [:mythmon]]

Attachment: Bug 1472097 - Run Normandy immediately on start up if the buildid changes r?Gijs

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/cf1537e7065e
Run Normandy immediately on start up if the buildid changes r=Gijs

Comment 5

[Narcis Beleuzu [:NarcisB]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/cf1537e7065e