Never Miss a Stuck Archive Again — Introducing the Stuck Archive Watchdog

Release v0.1.227 · Maintenance · Scheduled: daily at 04:00 UTC

The problem

Closing out a tenancy involves a lot of moving parts. When the final archiving step stalls silently in the background, nobody gets told — and the tenancy close-out stays blocked. In the worst cases, this means deposit decisions hang in limbo, compliance deadlines get missed, and admins only discover the problem when a landlord or tenant chases.

What we've built

Starting with v0.1.227, a new Stuck Archive Watchdog runs automatically every day at 04:00 UTC. It scans every tenancy archive that has been sitting in a pending state for more than an hour and takes immediate action:

Marks the archive as error so the failure is visible in the admin panel rather than silently pending.
Sets a clear error message on the record so there is context for investigation.
Sends an urgent in-app notification to the organisation admin, including the archive ID and tenancy address.
Sends an urgent email notification to the organisation admin with the same details.

No configuration required. No manual monitoring. The watchdog runs itself.

Why it matters

A stuck archive is not just a technical inconvenience — it can mean a tenant's deposit situation is unresolved and a landlord is left waiting for a decision. By surfacing these failures automatically and routing them directly to the person who can act on them, we keep tenancy close-outs moving and reduce the risk of compliance breaches under the Renters' Rights Act.

What admins need to do

If you receive a stuck-archive notification, check the archive ID and tenancy address in the message, investigate the cause in the admin panel, and re-trigger the archive once the issue is resolved. The error message written to the record will help narrow down the root cause.

For more detail, see the Stuck Archive Watchdog feature documentation.

Released in v0.1.227. Affects tenancyArchives, orgMembers, and notifications.