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builders: bump max-silent-time to 4h#950

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booxter wants to merge 1 commit intoNixOS:mainfrom
booxter:bump-silent-time
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builders: bump max-silent-time to 4h#950
booxter wants to merge 1 commit intoNixOS:mainfrom
booxter:bump-silent-time

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@booxter
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@booxter booxter commented Jan 31, 2026

After LTO was enabled for nixpkgs firefox darwin build, we started
hitting hydra timeouts due to long silence during XUL linkage:

https://hydra.nixos.org/build/320487707
https://hydra.nixos.org/build/319560484

I believe this happens because nix-store does not propagate settings
from derivation meta to remote nix-daemon after initial connection. (See
NixOS/nix#15125 for more details and a potential
fix.)

While this issue is not fixed in Nix, this patch bumps max-silent-time
to 4h for all builders, both darwin and linux. The 4h setting comes from
the observation that all nixpkgs packages that do set meta.maxSilent
set it to 4h.

Note: while we don't have immediate need to bump the limit to 4h for
non-mac builders, it seems prudent to do so because at least some
meta.maxSilent settings in nixpkgs, including for firefox, originate
from linux timeouts:

NixOS/nixpkgs#129212
NixOS/nixpkgs#129115

After LTO was enabled for nixpkgs firefox darwin build, we started
hitting hydra timeouts due to long silence during XUL linkage:

https://hydra.nixos.org/build/320487707
https://hydra.nixos.org/build/319560484

I believe this happens because nix-store does not propagate settings
from derivation meta to remote nix-daemon after initial connection. (See
NixOS/nix#15125 for more details and a potential
fix.)

While this issue is not fixed in Nix, this patch bumps max-silent-time
to 4h for all builders, both darwin and linux. The 4h setting comes from
the observation that all nixpkgs packages that *do* set meta.maxSilent
set it to 4h.

Note: while we don't have immediate need to bump the limit to 4h for
non-mac builders, it seems prudent to do so because at least some
meta.maxSilent settings in nixpkgs, including for firefox, originate
from linux timeouts:

NixOS/nixpkgs#129212
NixOS/nixpkgs#129115

Signed-off-by: Ihar Hrachyshka <ihar.hrachyshka@gmail.com>
@booxter
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booxter commented Feb 2, 2026

@mweinelt FYI

@mweinelt
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mweinelt commented Feb 2, 2026

Won't make this call alone. This will affect our darwin builders quite a bit.

@booxter
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booxter commented Feb 7, 2026

To clarify, this patch affects both macos and other builders. (The latter part can be reverted if it's of concern but my thinking is that the reason for macos bump is not specific to macos, even if it manifested itself on this platform.)

I don't think this change would affect builders by much since it only changes the silence timeout, and it does it relatively gradually. The regular default per-job timeout stays intact.


Regardless, I'm told that Hydra is switching to a new queue implementation that won't use nix-store protocol to propagate derivations, and that hopefully won't be affected by the meta amnesia. If that happens soon, this patch won't be needed. I will leave the PR open in case you decide Hydra update has to be postponed for some reason.

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2 participants