The product updated while your tab was open

We ship updates during the day. If your tab was open when one landed, this is what happens.

The problem, if nothing handles it

The product loads pieces of itself as you go rather than all at once, and a deploy replaces those pieces. A tab open across a deploy knows the old names, and the next piece it asks for is not there any more.

Left alone, what you see depends on where you were: a blank area, a spinner that never stops, or an error dialog. None of them mentions that a new version shipped, which is the one fact that would explain it.

And it lands at the worst moment. The tabs open across a deploy belong to people in the middle of something, and the click that fails is the one after they finished typing.

What actually happens

The product notices, retries the piece it could not load, and if that does not work tells you plainly that a newer version is available and offers to reload.

What proves it worked

You either keep working, or you get a sentence explaining that an update is available. You do not get a blank panel.

What to do if you get the reload prompt mid-task

Finish what you were typing and save it, then reload. The prompt is not a countdown and nothing is taken away while it is showing.

If you see a blank area instead

That is a fault in this recovery rather than in your browser. Raise a ticket, say what screen you were on, and include the version if you can see it. The widget sends the version with your message automatically.

Reloading will fix your immediate problem. Tell us anyway, because a blank area means the recovery did not fire and the next person gets the same thing.

Why we do not just stop deploying during the day

Because that trades a small, recoverable interruption for a much worse one: batching a week of changes into one release at night is how a bad release becomes a bad week. Frequent small deploys, and a client that recovers from them, is the better side of that trade.