Patch 4.0.3 Was Released to Fix the Friendship Archiving Bug From 4.0.2 — It Instead Archived All Friendships That 4.0.2 Had Spared — The Fix Broke Different Friendships

At 10:00 AM EST, MetaCity deployed Patch 4.0.3, described in its release notes as 'a targeted hotfix addressing the social relationship scope error introduced in Patch 4.0.2.' The patch did not restore the 12 million friendships archived by 4.0.2. Instead, it applied the friendship decay archiving logic to the population of connections that 4.0.2 had not affected: all user relationships that had registered an interaction within the past 90 days. These were the connections the previous patch had spared. Patch 4.0.3 archived them. MetaCity's social graph has now processed two separate archiving events within six hours that together cover the full spectrum of interaction frequency — high and low — leaving users uncertain which of their friendships, if any, are still intact. MetaCity pulled 4.0.3 at 11:45 AM and issued a statement acknowledging the error was 'the inverse of the intended fix.' Engineering is investigating. Patch 4.0.4 has been announced. The MetaCity Social Connections team's community liaison account has not posted since 9:58 AM.

Patch 4.0.3 was released at 10:00 AM with a release note entry that read: 'Social Relationships — Targeted hotfix addressing the NPC decay scope error introduced in 4.0.2. Corrects the configuration parameter to limit friendship decay archiving to NPC companion relationship types only. User-to-user social connections will no longer be affected.' The engineering team responsible for the fix had identified the scope parameter error from 4.0.2 — the 'all_relationship_types' value that had caused the mass archiving — and replaced it with what they intended to be a corrected parameter. The corrected parameter read 'active_user_relationship_types.' The team's intent was to target NPC relationships only. 'Active_user_relationship_types' does not target NPC relationships. It targets user-to-user relationships that have been active in the prior 90 days. The parameter did the opposite of what was intended in the most complete way possible.

Patch 4.0.2, deployed overnight, had archived all user friendships with no registered interaction in the prior 90 days — approximately 12 million connections. These were the inactive friendships. Patch 4.0.3, deployed at 10:00 AM, archived all user friendships with registered interaction in the prior 90 days. These were the active friendships. The two patches, operating sequentially, had now processed the entire friendship graph. Every user relationship on MetaCity that fell into either frequency category — which is to say every user relationship — had been flagged by one patch or the other. MetaCity's social graph, as of 11:00 AM, had processed more friendship archiving events in a single morning than it had in its entire prior operational history. Several community data analysts who track platform social metrics described the combined event as 'a full social reset.'

4.0.2 Broke the Inactive Ones. 4.0.3 Broke the Active Ones. Nobody Has Any Friends Left.

User responses to the 4.0.3 archiving were in some respects more distressing than responses to 4.0.2, because 4.0.3 targeted the connections users had assumed were safe. When 4.0.2 archived inactive friendships, affected users could contextualize the loss: these were relationships that had not been maintained. Some users described finding it clarifying, even if painful. When 4.0.3 archived active friendships — connections that users had been actively using, that had survived the first patch — the contextual framework broke down. Users who had spent the morning reassuring themselves that their healthy relationships were intact now received a second wave of archiving notifications for those same relationships. The MetaCity Support queue, which had been managing the 4.0.2 ticket volume, received an additional surge that support status monitors described at 11:30 AM as 'effectively doubled.'

MetaCity pulled Patch 4.0.3 at 11:45 AM and issued a statement: 'We have identified and rolled back a parameter error in Patch 4.0.3 that resulted in the archiving of social connections unintended by the fix. The error was the inverse of the intended correction. Engineering is investigating. Patch 4.0.4 will be released following thorough review.' The statement did not address what 'thorough review' means in the context of a team that has now produced two consecutive patches with inverse errors on the same parameter. It did not provide a timeline for 4.0.4. It did not address the combined population of friendships now sitting in the Inactive Archive across both patch events. The Social Connections team's community liaison account — an account that had been posting updates throughout the morning — made its last post at 9:58 AM, two minutes before 4.0.3 deployed, noting: 'Fix is on the way. Sit tight.' It has not posted since. Patch 4.0.4 has been announced. No deployment time has been given.