To efficiently address the issue you're facing, let's examine potential reasons why a Kubernetes pod might experience significant delays, especially in the context of Prefect. Here are some usual suspects: 1. Resource Availability: Kubernetes pods may remain in the "Pending" state if there aren't enough resources (CPU, memory) to schedule the pod. Check your cluster's resource allocation and requests/limits for the pod. 2. Networking or DNS Issues: Sometimes, networking issues can delay the pod startup. Ensure that your cluster's networking model, including DNS resolution, is functioning correctly. 3. Pod Startup Time: Some containers take time to start due to initialization logic or slow application boot times. Check the container's logs once it starts to see if there's any indication of delays during startup. 4. Image Pulling: If the Docker image is large or needs to be pulled from a remote registry, this can add significant time. Ensure your EKS nodes have efficient access to the image registry and consider using smaller base images or optimizing images for faster pulls. 5. Prefect Worker Configuration: Verify that the Prefect deployment configuration (e.g., Kubernetes namespace, resource settings) aligns with EKS best practices and is appropriately tuned for your workload. To provide more detailed help, I'll check for relevant issues and documentation using your provided conditions. If you're running Prefect 2.x or 3.x, this approach will give insights into any known issues or configurations that could be causing the delay. Let's find more information by checking Prefect's documentation and GitHub issues. It appears there was an issue executing the documentation searches due to missing query parameters. However, a search in the GitHub issues for Prefect has provided some potentially relevant information. GitHub Issues Analysis: 1. ModuleNotFoundError Issue: Some users have reported under specific configurations involving custom images, issues with running flows simultaneously. While this is not directly related to pod start times, concurrency issues might affect service availability and response times which can indirectly cause delays. (Source: GitHub Issue #8337) 2. HTTP2 Connection Errors: Another issue involves HTTP2 connection errors which are seen in longer flow runs. This isn't directly indicative of delays at startup but may provide context if related network issues arise. (Source: GitHub Issue #11660) 3. Job Template Command Addition: A recent pull request to add a command for getting the default base job template could be of interest if you're using custom templates or configurations that deviate from the standard implementations. (Source: GitHub Pull Request #10776) For the most part, the delay you're experiencing might be environment specific, and not necessarily a direct bug within Prefect itself. Here are further recommendations: ### Recommendations: - Resource Checks: Verify that your EKS cluster has sufficient resources and check AWS CloudWatch or similar monitoring for any resource constraints during these delayed periods. - Image Caching: Ensure that your nodes possibly cache images, and the image sizes are optimized. - Prefect Versions and Settings: Make sure your Prefect worker configuration (number of replicas, concurrency settings) is optimal for your workload. Without a detailed examination of your specific deployment and orchestration settings, isolating the cause may require more hands-on debugging and log examination, especially with your Kubernetes environment. If possible, try running with increased logging levels to capture detailed timing metrics around the Kubernetes pod and Prefect worker interactions.

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5. Image pulled in 48 seconds