[Server] Windows jobs not starting

Overview

The machine_provisioner.terminatePendingWindowsAfter setting in CircleCI Server determines how long to wait for a Windows VM to become ready before terminating it. The default is 6m. If you notice Windows VMs spinning up, becoming ready, and then terminating unexpectedly, increasing this timeout may help.

Steps to Adjust

1. Access Configuration:

   Open your CircleCI Server configuration file (e.g., values.yml).

2. Edit terminatePendingWindowsAfter:

   Find the machine_provisioner section and update the timeout:

   machine_provisioner:
     ...
     terminatePendingWindowsAfter: 10m  # Increase from 6m to 10m
   

3. Save Changes:

   Save the configuration file.

4. Update CircleCI Server:

   $ namespace=<namespace>
   $ USERNAME=<USERNAME>
   $ PASSWORD=<PASSWORD>
   $ helm upgrade circleci-server oci://cciserver.azurecr.io/circleci-server -n $NAMESPACE --version <version> -f <path-to-values.yaml> --username $USERNAME --password $PASSWORD

5. Monitor Behavior:

   Check if the VMs stabilize and no longer terminate prematurely.

Additional Resources

• CircleCI Server Documentation
• AWS EC2 Instance Management
• GCP VM Instance Management