Migration Hard Stops inforcement

Problem Statement

Hi

today I was upgrading a Sentry Self Hosted instance, But I was doing a wrong path,

I was expecting a meaning full error instead of a random error before running migration

Solution Brainstorm

Like what we have in GitLab, It should check before running migration and raise a meaningful error and don't start at all

Product Area

Unknown

Assigning to @getsentry/support for routing ⏲️

ENG-8607

This is the random error that was irrelevant to the problem

It would be great if it can detect and raise a meaningful error like GitLab

GitLab also has a upgrade path website that will generate upgrade path between two versions with required notes

Running migrations for default                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Operations to perform:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
  Apply all migrations: ai_monitoring, auth, contenttypes, explore, feedback, flags, hybridcloud, insights, investigations, nodestore, notifications, releases, seer, sentry, sessions, sites, social_auth, workflow_engine                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  File "/.venv/bin/sentry", line 4, in <module>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
    raise SystemExit(main())                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                     ~~~~^^                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
  File "/usr/src/sentry/src/sentry/runner/main.py", line 146, in main                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
    func(**kwargs)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
    ~~~~^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1442, in __call__                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
           ~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1363, in main                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1830, in invoke                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1226, in invoke                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    [0/1932]
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)                                                                                                             
           ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                             
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 794, in invoke                                                                                
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)                                                                                                                           
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/decorators.py", line 34, in new_func                                                                         
    return f(get_current_context(), *args, **kwargs)                                                                                                           
  File "/usr/src/sentry/src/sentry/runner/decorators.py", line 34, in inner                                                                                    
    return ctx.invoke(f, *args, **kwargs)
           ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                      
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 794, in invoke 
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)                                                                                                                           
  File "/usr/src/sentry/src/sentry/runner/commands/upgrade.py", line 168, in upgrade
    _upgrade(                                             
    ~~~~~~~~^                                                                                                                                                  
        not noinput,                              
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                           
    ...<5 lines>...                                                                            
        create_kafka_topics,                                                                   
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                   
    )                                                                                          
    ^                                                                                                                                                                                         
  File "/usr/src/sentry/src/sentry/runner/commands/upgrade.py", line 83, in _upgrade                                                                           
    dj_call_command(                                                                                                                                           
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^                                                                                                                                           
        "migrate",                                                                                                                                             
        ^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                                             
    ...<3 lines>...                                                                                                                                            
        verbosity=verbosity,                                                                                                                                   
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                                   
    )                                                                                                                                                          
    ^                                                                                                                                                          
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 194, in call_command
    return command.execute(*args, **defaults)                                                                                                                  
           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                  
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 464, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)                                                                                                                     
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 111, in wrapper
    res = handle_func(*args, **kwargs)                                                                                                                         
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/migrate.py", line 299, in handle
    pre_migrate_apps = pre_migrate_state.apps                                                                                                                  
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                                  
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/utils/functional.py", line 47, in __get__
    res = instance.__dict__[self.name] = self.func(instance)                                                                                                   
                                         ~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^                                                                                                   
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/db/migrations/state.py", line 589, in apps
    return StateApps(self.real_apps, self.models)                                                                                                              
  File "/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/django/db/migrations/state.py", line 660, in __init__
    raise ValueError("\n".join(error.msg for error in errors))                                                                                                 
ValueError: The field feedback.Feedback.environment was declared with a lazy reference to 'sentry.environment', but app 'sentry' isn't installed.
The field flags.FlagWebHookSigningSecretModel.organization was declared with a lazy reference to 'sentry.organization', but app 'sentry' isn't installed.
The field insights.InsightsStarredSegment.organization was declared with a lazy reference to 'sentry.organization', but app 'sentry' isn't installed.
The field insights.InsightsStarredSegment.project was declared with a lazy reference to 'sentry.project', but app 'sentry' isn't installed.
The field social_auth.UserSocialAuth.user was declared with a lazy reference to 'sentry.user', but app 'sentry' isn't installed.

I have created this issue on Sentry project iteself initially since it was a migration related thing that happens in the main sentry project

I've experiencing a similar issue when I missed that 26.7.0 was a hard stop 🫣

For anyone else experiencing this problem, roll your installation back to 26.7.0 and then update your docker-compose.yml file to use Valkey (otherwise Redis will fail to start and you can't run the migrations):

- image: "redis:6.2.20-alpine"
+ image: "valkey/valkey:8.1.9-alpine"

- test: redis-cli ping | grep PONG
+ test: valkey-cli ping | grep PONG

- command: ["redis-server", "/usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf"]
+ command: ["valkey-server", "/usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf"]

I agree with the sentiment though that Sentry should enforce the hard stops and not allow you to upgrade to a newer version if you haven't upgraded to the hard stop release.

@jamgregory

@jamgregory

For me it was

docker compose down
Edit .env and change image tag to the older version (hard stop)
docker compose up -d web
docker compose exec -it web sentry upgrade
docker compose down
Change image back in .env
./install.sh
docker compose up -d --wait

Using these steps you can migrate database easier

Oh right, we are trying to mitigate this better with this PR: #4489

you can see there is no pride in this project to make it as seemless as possible.
all the broken migrations back in 25.x there is no script or new version that fixes that CORRECTLY OR FULLY.
just a "i dont care throwaway project"

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Migration Hard Stops inforcement #4511

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Migration Hard Stops inforcement #4511

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getsantry commented on Sep 14, 2026

linear-code commented on Sep 14, 2026

mhkarimi1383 commented on Sep 14, 2026

mhkarimi1383 commented on Sep 15, 2026

jamgregory commented on Sep 21, 2026

mhkarimi1383 commented on Sep 21, 2026

aldy505 commented on Sep 24, 2026

romanstingler commented on Sep 25, 2026

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