Scheduled Database Maintenance | October 28th, 2026

Attention arXiv users: a week from today, on Wednesday, October 28th, 2026, arXiv will be migrating our database to the cloud. This is scheduled maintenance for arxiv.org and will result in some disruptions to service, mailings, and new announcements.

Why are we migrating the arXiv database?

We’re migrating the arXiv database as an important step in arXiv-CE, a critical project to modernize arXiv’s technology and code to better serve arXiv users and set arXiv up for stable, scalable growth. The arXiv engineering team has been working diligently to modernize our technology since 2023, thanks to generous funding and community support. We’ve made a lot of progress in the past three years, and we are very close to wrapping up the arXiv-CE project.

arXiv’s services and database are currently hosted on Cornell University servers, where they have been for the past 25 years. The goal of this part of the arXiv-CE project is to move arXiv’s systems from Cornell to the cloud. Migrating the arXiv database, which stores arXiv’s core information, is the first step – once it has moved, we will move the rest of our services.

By migrating to the cloud, we will:

• Improve reliability and resilience: cloud hosting gives us stronger redundancy, automated backups, and faster disaster recovery.
• Support growth: we can add capacity as submissions and readership grow, without buying and maintaining physical hardware.
• Reduce operational risk and overhead: we will rely less on aging on-premises infrastructure, and our team can spend more time improving arXiv.
• Simplify our architecture: with all systems in one environment, arXiv will be easier to maintain, secure, and develop.

How will this scheduled maintenance affect me?

The arXiv team strives to make updates with as few disruptions to service as possible. However, sometimes outages are necessary to safely and efficiently make updates to arxiv.org. When we migrate the arXiv database on Wednesday, October 28th, there will be limited downtime and a temporary disruption to the announcement schedule.

The database migration will begin at 7:00 AM EDT (11:00 UTC) and is scheduled to have a service maintenance window of 5 hours, ending at 12:00 PM EDT (16:00 UTC).

During the maintenance window, arXiv will be in “read-only” mode. This means all functions that require login (submission, moderation, account editing, endorsement, etc) will be unavailable. Browsing, viewing, and searching papers on arxiv.org will continue to work as normal.

From 7AM – 12PM ET, arXiv users will not be able to login or make any changes to their accounts. There will be no access to the submission system. arXiv users intending to submit work to arXiv, please plan accordingly.

At noon (12:00PM EDT | 16:00 UTC) arxiv.org will exit read-only mode and login functionality will return.

General service on arxiv.org will return to normal. arXiv users will be able to login to make changes to their account, submit papers, etc.

Announcements of new submissions will be deferred.

Similar to when a federal holiday disrupts the regular arXiv announcement schedule, this scheduled maintenance will cause a temporary deferral of arXiv announcements. There will be no announcement or mailings on Wednesday. This temporary disruption will allow arXiv staff and volunteer moderators time to focus on responding to user questions and test for any potential issues. The regular announcement schedule will resume Thursday, October 29th.

• Wednesday, October 28, 2026: No announcement. Articles received and accepted at or after 14:00EDT Tuesday, October 27, 2026, and before 14:00ET Thursday, October 29, 2026 will be announced on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 20:00EDT.

Where can I check for updates on arxiv.org status and/or the status of the arXiv-CE project?

We know that disruptions to service impact researchers and we strive to minimize that disruption as much as possible with open, timely, and frequent communication across all possible channels.

The arXiv status page will regularly be updated with information as we migrate the database, and there will be alerts in the submission portal in the week leading up to the database migration, as well as public banners across arxiv.org.

If you want more ways to stay up to date on arXiv news and changes to the announcement schedule, subscribe to the arXiv blog or follow us in your social media feed (LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Mastodon, Bluesky and Facebook) for timely updates.

Thank you to all our users for their patience while we make these changes, and as always, feedback is welcome as we continue to improve arXiv.