This summary is created by Generative AI and may differ from the actual content.
Overview
Between August 21, 2025, 15:00 UTC and September 2, 2025, 15:22 UTC, the avatars.githubusercontent.com image service experienced degradation, failing to display user avatars for users in the Middle East. Avatar images appeared broken on github.com for affected users. This was caused by a configuration change within GitHub's edge infrastructure in the region, leading to HTTP 503 errors. The incident's prolonged nature was partly due to an alerting threshold set too low, which hindered timely detection. The issue was resolved by removing the affected site from service.Impact
The incident impacted approximately 82% of users routed through Middle East-based points-of-presence, representing about 0.14% of global users. For these users, avatar images on github.com appeared broken. The degradation lasted for 12 days and 22 minutes.Trigger
A configuration change within GitHub's edge infrastructure in the Middle East region caused HTTP requests for avatar images to fail, resulting in HTTP 503 errors.Detection
The failure to detect the issues in a timely manner was a direct result of an alerting threshold being set too low, which prevented automated systems from flagging the problem promptly.Resolution
The incident was mitigated by removing the affected site from service. This action successfully restored avatar serving for the impacted users.Root Cause
The primary root cause was a configuration change within GitHub's edge infrastructure in the Middle East, which led to HTTP 503 errors for avatar image requests. A significant contributing factor to the prolonged incident was an alerting threshold set too low, which prevented timely detection of the service degradation.
