A system and method for resolving upgrade conflicts in a content distribution system is disclosed. The present principles resolve upgrade conflicts by assigning a priority level to each upgrade and using these priorities to determine whether one or more already running upgrades should be interrupted in favor of a newly launched upgrade. If it is determined that the already running upgrades should not be interrupted, the new upgrade is terminated without attempting an upgrade. If it is determined that the already running upgrades should be interrupted, a signal is sent to kill the already running upgrade processes, causing the already running upgrades to safely exit. Further embodiments include ignoring kill signals at certain times during the upgrade process to ensure system stability.