Dear Balena Team,
This has been on my mind (and my team’s) for years now, so I figured it’s finally time to share some feedback.
The Update lock mechanism is incredibly useful. In our setup, our application places a lock file on boot to prevent unexpected disruptions, and a cron job removes the lock at midnight so updates can happen outside of client opening hours. This works very well for automated updates.
The challenge comes when we, as users, want to perform an explicit action on a single device through the dashboard. Actions like rebooting or restarting a service currently require us to first navigate to:
Device Configuration → Override existing update lock(s) if your app is stuck in an invalid state under an update lock
This extra step quickly becomes frustrating. If I’m explicitly choosing to restart a device or service from the portal, my intent is already clear. Why not allow these user-triggered actions to automatically override the lock?
In the past, we had the ability to force a restart directly from the device page and also manage locks from there. That was much more intuitive. I’d even argue that this configuration option is one of the most commonly used, so it would make sense to make it more prominent instead of burying it in the larger list of device configurations.
Of course, there may be considerations I’m not aware of that explain why it’s set up this way. But at least from our team’s perspective, improving the UX here would make day-to-day device management much easier.