GitHub Actions "The hosted runner system version is being upgraded"

GitHub periodically rolls new runner images. During the rollout, jobs targeting the affected pool can be delayed or briefly fail to acquire a runner. It is a transient infrastructure state, not a workflow bug.

What this error means

Jobs sit queued or fail to start with a message that the hosted runner system version is being upgraded.

The hosted runner system version is being upgraded.
Your job will start once the upgrade completes.

Common causes

Runner image rollout in progress

GitHub is replacing the hosted runner image; capacity for the targeted label is temporarily reduced.

Pool drain during maintenance

Older runners are drained before new ones come online, creating a short window of no available runners.

How to fix it

Wait and re-run

1. Wait a few minutes for the upgrade window to finish, then re-run the job.
2. Check the GitHub status page for an active Actions incident.

Use warm-pool managed runners to avoid the window

1. Latchkey auto-retries transient acquisition failures and serves jobs from warm pools, so GitHub-hosted maintenance windows do not stall your runs.
2. Target the Latchkey runner label to bypass the shared hosted-image rollout.

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: latchkey-small

How to prevent it

• Treat occasional rollout delays as expected on shared hosted runners.
• Prefer warm-pool managed runners for latency-sensitive pipelines.

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