Job timeout risk: ee/spec/models/merge_request_spec.rb ran much longer than expected

Why was this issue created?

ee/spec/models/merge_request_spec.rb was reported to have:

1. exceeded Knapsack's expected runtime by at least 50%, and
2. been identified as a notable pipeline bottleneck and a job timeout risk

Suggested steps for investigation

1. To reproduce in CI by running test files in the same order, you can follow the steps listed here.
2. Identify if a specific test case is stalling the run time. Hint: You can search the job's log for Starting example group ee/spec/models/merge_request_spec.rb and view the elapsed time after each test case in the proceeding lines starting with [RSpecRunTime].
3. If the test file is large, consider refactoring it into multiple files to allow better test parallelization across runners.
4. If the run time cannot be fixed in time, consider quarantine the spec(s) to restore performance.

Run time details

• Reported from pipeline 4730594 created at 2025-10-14T18:05:33Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-27-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 37 minutes 9.29 seconds, actual: 74 minutes 57.44 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 7 minutes 47.43 seconds, actual: 14 minutes 38.66 seconds
Spec file weight	19.54% of total suite run time

• Reported from pipeline 4730898 created at 2025-10-14T19:23:17Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-27-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 37 minutes 9.29 seconds, actual: 76 minutes 24.04 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 7 minutes 47.43 seconds, actual: 15 minutes 37.1 seconds
Spec file weight	20.44% of total suite run time

• Reported from pipeline 4735700 created at 2025-10-15T15:55:27Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-31-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 42 minutes 17.18 seconds, actual: 70 minutes 34.4 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 8 minutes 37.15 seconds, actual: 14 minutes 30.91 seconds
Spec file weight	20.57% of total suite run time

• Reported from pipeline 4758355 created at 2025-10-21T11:31:31Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-32-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 43 minutes 46.98 seconds, actual: 79 minutes 43.12 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 8 minutes 14.86 seconds, actual: 16 minutes 42.66 seconds
Spec file weight	20.96% of total suite run time

• Reported from pipeline 4766628 created at 2025-10-23T01:05:16Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-35-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 41 minutes 53.15 seconds, actual: 75 minutes 42.41 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 7 minutes 57.36 seconds, actual: 16 minutes 1.02 seconds
Spec file weight	21.16% of total suite run time

• Reported from pipeline 4775382 created at 2025-10-24T22:38:01Z

Field	Value
Job URL	rspec-ee-unit-pg16-single-db-31-39
Job total RSpec suite run time	expected: 43 minutes 17.58 seconds, actual: 79 minutes 49.35 seconds
Spec file run time	expected: 8 minutes 42.25 seconds, actual: 19 minutes 3.09 seconds
Spec file weight	23.87% of total suite run time