Public AMI removed without notification

Question

Hello,
We are using a bunch of public AMI, and yesterday we started to have failures such as:

```
Failed to complete #create action: [undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass in the specified region us-east-1. Please check this AMI is available in this region.] on system-probe-test-ubuntu-18-04-ec2-x86-64
```
The list of impacted AMI is the following:
```
debian-11 ami-09e24b0cfe072ecef
debian-12 ami-02aab8d5301cb8d68
debian-12 ami-0076a5c1d029e906a
ubuntu-16-04-4.4 ami-a4dc46db
ubuntu-16-04 ami-0b0ea68c435eb488d
ubuntu-18-04 ami-0ee23bfc74a881de5
ubuntu-18-04 ami-02ed82f3a38303e6f
ubuntu-22-04 ami-08c40ec9ead489470
ubuntu-23-04 ami-062b1c3c00754c48b
ubuntu-18-04 ami-02ed82f3a38303e6f
ubuntu-20-04 ami-0b75998a97c952252
ubuntu-21-04 ami-044f0ceee8e885e87
ubuntu-22-04 ami-02ddaf75821f25213
amazonlinux2022-5-15 ami-0309aede310b9cc1f
amazonlinux2023 ami-0889a44b331db0194
amazonlinux2022-5-15 ami-0a8495f6303122235
centos-79 ami-0aedf6b1cb669b4c7
centos-79 ami-00e87074e52e6c9f9
rhel-86 ami-06640050dc3f556bb
rocky-92 ami-062b16ca222175b97
fedora-36 ami-08b7bda26f4071b80
win2016 ami-03bee25bb430166e4
win2019 ami-01cc656499debb56a
win2022 ami-0176b2659d40f0696
```
Besides, the `sles-15 ami-02f7663f03ca92749` failed temporarily and seems to work properly now.
Most of those images are still visible through the console and have an expiration in the future. We worked around the issue by using new images, but would you have any idea what could have occurred here?
The issue was first noticed on our side on 28JAN24 ~5AM CET
Many thanks in advance

Answer

Hi!
Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 and 23.04 are already out of standard support. This means that if you launch them, it is most likely they will contain many security vulnerabilities. That is why they got removed. But, even though, you can still launch them via awscli. If you need those Ubuntu versions and want to get them updated, check out their Ubuntu Pro counterparts.

And finally, I also noticed that you are using an 22.04 AMI from 2022. If you launch that, not only the update will take a while, but also it will need a reboot. The good practice is to always get the latest.

If you are using AWSCLI, you can get the latest AMI typing:

```
aws ssm get-parameters --names \
   /aws/service/canonical/ubuntu/server/20.04/stable/current/amd64/hvm/ebs-gp2/ami-id
```

More about that here: https://canonical-aws.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/aws-how-to/instances/find-ubuntu-images/

Answer

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out.

I understand that you are experiencing issues while using the mentioned public AMI's in us-east-1 region.

To answer your question, we require details that are non-public information. Please open a support case with AWS using the following [link](https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/case/create)

Have a great day ahead!

Public AMI removed without notification

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