Netlify Deploy Previews unreliable

[TimidRobot]

Description

Netlify is configured to provide previews on pull requests (PRs). However, the previews are too often missing from the PR. The last time Deploy Previews worked for a PR with a large number of files was 2025-07-10. Since then all PRs with a large number of files changed have not had a Deploy Preview 😢

PR audit

Date	Pull request	Files changed	Deploy Preview present	Deploy Preview build time	Notes
2026-01-26	#279	31,731	❌	👻	Branch build time: 1m 39s
2026-01-08	#277	2	✅	33s
2025-12-11	#276	1	✅	35s
2025-12-11	#275	1	✅	31s
2025-12-11	#274	3	✅	26s
2025-12-10	#273	31,736	❌	👻	Branch build time: 1m 39s
2025-12-02	#272	31,731	❌	👻	Branch build time: 1m 35s (PR to test fixes for this issue, waited until branch build was completed before creating PR)
2025-12-02	#271	31,731	❌	👻	Branch build time: 37s (PR to test fixes for this issue, same commits as #270)
2025-12-02	#270	31,731	❌	👻	Branch build time: 1m 37s (PR to test fixes for this issue)
2025-11-21	#266	1	✅	26s
2025-11-21	#265	30,529	❌	👻	Branch build time: 25s
2025-10-21	#264	3	✅	34s
2025-10-21	#263	31,726	❌	👻	Branch build time: 1m 51s
2025-10-16	#262	59	✅	47s
2025-10-16	#261	16	✅	38s
2025-09-08	#259	418	✅	57s
2025-09-03	#258	643	✅	30s
2025-09-03	#257	9	✅	31s
2025-08-15	#248	2	✅	29s
2025-08-13	#247	638	✅	46s
2025-07-10	#246	31,727	✅	36s

• Spam PRs are not included (see accordion, below)

Spam PRs (click to expand)

---

Date	Pull request	Files changed	Deploy Preview present	Deploy Preview build time	Notes
2025-08-19	👻 #256	300	❌	👻	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #255	4	❌	👻	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #254	2	❓	36s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #253	1	❓	36s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #252	300	❓	33s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #251	166	❓	33s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #250	1	❓	42s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!
2025-08-19	👻 #249	1	❓	56s	404: assumed PR was deleted or hidden by GitHub!

• All of the 👻❓404 PRs, above, where created by 👻 @chaneloco. Assumed PRs and user were deleted by GitHub!
  • (There were also 7 PRs in creativecommons/chooser created by this user and deleted by GitHub)

What happened on 2025-08-19?

• 2025-08-19 GitHub Status - Disruption with some GitHub services doesn't appear to explain the deleted/hidden PRs or issues with Netlify

---

Troubleshooting

• Reviewed and verified deployment settings
  • Deploy Previews | Netlify Docs
• Reviewed and verified notification settings
  • Deploy notifications | Netlify Docs

Expectation

Deployment previews should work as documented.

Resolution

• I would be interested in resolving this bug.

[TimidRobot]

Per https://answers.netlify.com/t/cannot-find-the-deploy-preview-button-of-a-pull-request-on-github/48771/4 (emphasis added):

All my pull requests have a Netlify (bot) section prior to the checks section which shows the deploy log, and deploy preview links in it (as previously posted.)

If you are not seeing this, you may need to remove the app and re-authorise it.

I uninstalled the Netlify App from GitHub and then re-installed it.

[TimidRobot]

Caution

Uninstalling and reinstalling the Netlify App removed all GitHub pull request comment deploy notifications from all of our Netlify projects

[TimidRobot]

Emailed Netlify support