Error: server-side streaming endpoints are non-functional – LaunchDarkly

Affected: Server-side SDKs

Symptoms

The server-side SDKs fail to connect using streaming mode using the stream.launchdarkly.com endpoint, but the sdk.launchdarkly.com endpoint for polling mode is available.

Cause

If the server-side streaming endpoints are temporarily non-functional, SDKs that use streaming cannot receive real-time updates from LaunchDarkly, and new or restarting services will not be able to load the initial feature flag payload from LaunchDarkly.

Solution

There are two workarounds:

Option 1: Use polling mode

Configure your SDKs to poll for updates instead of streaming them.

Below are a few examples for some of our server-side SDKs. The examples all use the default minimum polling interval of 3600 seconds (5 minutes); you may adjust this to be higher if you are not making frequent flag, segment, and/or metric changes in the affected LaunchDarkly environments.

.NET version 8.x:

var config = Configuration.Builder(sdkKey)
    .DataSource(Components.PollingDataSource()
        .PollInterval(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3600)))
    .Build();

Java version 7.x:

   LDConfig config = new LDConfig.Builder()
         .dataSource(Components.pollingDataSource().pollInterval(Duration.ofSeconds(45)))
         .build();

Node version 9.x

const client = init('sdk-key', {
 stream: false,        // turn off streaming to use polling
 pollInterval: 3600
});

Python version 9.x

from ldclient import LDClient, Config

client = LDClient(Config("sdk-key", stream=False, poll_interval=3600))

Option 2: Use LD Relay in offline mode

Use LD Relay in offline mode to serve flag data from a local archive instead of the LaunchDarkly streaming endpoints. Note: This option is only available for customers on Enterprise plans.

To use this option:

Go to your Relay settings page.
Create a Relay Proxy autoconfig token and save it.

Use an inline policy to limit which environments are included in the archive. For example:

[
  {
    "actions": ["*"],
    "effect": "allow",
    "resources": ["proj/default:env/production"]
  }
]

Download the archive:

curl -vv https://sdk.launchdarkly.com/relay/latest-all \
-H "Authorization: $LD_RELAY_KEY" \
-o data.tar.gz

Move data.tar.gz to the host or container that runs LD Relay.

You can:
- Use an init container to fetch the file from an object store like S3
- Mount it via a persistent volume
- Bake it into the image
Set the following environment variable in your LD Relay container:
```
FILE_DATA_SOURCE=/path/to/data.tar.gz
```
Remove any LD_ENV_* variables or autoconfiguration settings. Do not set up other LaunchDarkly environments in the Relay Proxy configuration file when using offline mode.