Fly.io deleted my apps and DBs in an unrelated organization without warning

  • Posted 6 hours ago by pakejro
  • 2 points
Hi HN,

I’m experiencing a destructive and seemingly erratic behavior from Fly.io's automated systems that resulted in a total loss of data across multiple organizations.

I have been using Fly.io since July 2023 with two distinct organizations:

Org A: Used for some Selenium-based automation experiments in late 2025 and other unrelated private projects through the years.

Org B: A long-standing production environment with a Postgres database, active since 2023 with a consistent billing history.

The Incident Recently, I discovered that everything across all my organizations has been nuked. Apps, databases, and even the volume snapshots (backups) have vanished. The dashboard for my database volume now simply says "deleted 16 days ago."

The contradiction in their system is staggering:

In both organizations, I see a semi-transparent banner: "Your account was flagged by our fraud protection system. Learn more" (the "Learn more" is not even a link).

However, the "Billing" page for Org B still claims the account status is in "Good Standing."

To make it even more surreal, I recently received an automated email from billing@fly.io stating: "Your organization Org B got 100% discount this month!" while my data was already gone.

The critical issue: The database in Org B contains irreplaceable data. While I have older backups, the recent records are unique and cannot be reconstructed. Recovery is my absolute priority.

The Shadow-Lock Loop My account is NOT banned—I can still log in—but I am stuck in a programmatic "shadow-lock" loop:

Support Tickets: My emails to billing@fly.io (including specific Machine and Volume IDs) have gone unanswered for almost 3 days.

Paid Plan Upgrade: I tried to upgrade to the $29/mo Launch plan to access prioritized support, but the dashboard throws a "Failed to Get Current Plan" error every time I try to add a payment method.

Community Forum: I can't even post there; I get a "Validation Error" when trying to set a username.

Red Flags for the Community

Zero Notification: No email, no warning, and no notification of any violation before the wipe.

Instant Snapshot Deletion: Deleting persistent volumes AND their snapshots simultaneously without a grace period is a terrifying prospect for any PaaS user.

Cross-Org Contamination: A flag on an experimental organization (Org A) led to the silent destruction of a completely separate, clean production organization (Org B).

I have all the technical IDs ready. Although the dashboard says the volume was deleted 16 days ago, I am desperately hoping that a human engineer can still locate a backup or snapshot in their storage before the data is scrubbed forever.

Be careful: On Fly.io, an automated flag on one organization can apparently lead to the total destruction of everything you've built across your entire account over the last 2.5 years.

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