Increase Step queue time for Runners

[Thomas Dougherty]

Is there a way to increase the Step queue time, specifically for self-hosted runners?

I have multiple steps running in parallel, where one step takes longer than the others. The issue is, once any of the runners become available, the pipeline is kicked off and for the steps with unavailable runners, they are put into a queue. One of these steps takes 2 hours, so if it is queued say 3rd in line, it will hit the Bitbucket maximum of 2.5 hours.

To clarify, this is not Step build time, which has a parameter for this max-time. Guess does max-time also apply to queue vs just a step running?

https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/runners/

[Theodora Boudale · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas and welcome to the community!

I'm afraid that it is not possible to increase the step queue time.

As long as the step is picked up by a runner within 2.5 hours from the moment it was queued, it should be able to run. The duration of the step (once it goes out of the "queued" status and starts running) has nothing to do with the maximum step queue time.

Do you have enough runners so that your steps get picked up by a runner within 2.5 hours from the moment they are queued? If you are using Linux Docker runner, you could also look into using the Autoscaler for Runners on Kubernetes which scales up runners as needed:

• https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/autoscaler-for-runners-on-kubernetes/

When a step is picked up by a runner, that's when the max-time parameter kicks in. The max-time starts running from the moment the step goes out of the "queued" status. It is 120 minutes by default, but you can adjust it in your yml file to a value up to 720 minutes:

• https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/step-options/#Max-time

So, you can set it to 150 or 180 minutes for the 2 hour step to ensure it doesn't time out.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Thomas Dougherty]

I appreciate the response!

Is there an open feature request for increasing step queue times? Other CI/CD tools have this timeout option configurable. We build large software packages on edge devices that take about 2 hours to build. It's common for developers to set this runner queue timeout to be days or even weeks. For us to circumvent this issue, we'll need to buy more devices to be used as runners.

If there's no open ticket for this I can write one. I just want to emphasize this is a common use case and other Bitbucket Pipeline users may be experiencing similar challenges. As we've recently migrated from Jenkins -> Bitbucket pipelines this has been the most impactful missing feature that we haven't been able to "hack" around. Thank you again for your time.

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for your reply!

I appreciate your feedback and I certainly understand that an increased step queue time could reduce costs.

There was no existing feature request about this, so I created one in our public issue tracker:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BCLOUD-23547

I suggest adding your vote to the feature request (by selecting the link Vote for this issue) as the number of votes helps our product managers better understand the demand for new features. You can also ask your team memebers to do the same.

You are more than welcome to leave feedback and you can also add yourself as a watcher (by selecting the link Start watching this issue) if you'd like to be notified via email on updates.

Implementation of features is done as per our policy here and any updates will be posted in the feature request.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Thomas Dougherty]

We appreciate it, thank you!

[Theodora Boudale]

You are very welcome! Please feel free to reach out if you ever need anything else!