Fix uncaught StackOverflowError in StackTraces.getStackTrace by dougqh · Pull Request #12233 · DataDog/dd-trace-java

dougqh · 2026-08-18T19:43:14Z

What Does This Do

Widens the failure-handling in StackTraces.safeGetMessage and StackTraces.getStackTrace to also catch StackOverflowError, and adds a deeper fallback chain in getStackTrace for when even the getStackTrace()-array reconstruction fails.

Motivation

Intended to improve the case where a StackOverflowError is being reported. In that situation, StackTraces.getStackTrace is likely to trigger a fresh StackOverflowError.

Additional Notes

StackTraces.getStackTrace caught printStackTrace() failures with catch (Exception ...), so a second StackOverflowError thrown while formatting an already stack-constrained throwable escaped uncaught instead of falling back to the manual getStackTrace()-based reconstruction.
Widened the catches in safeGetMessage and getStackTrace to catch (Exception | StackOverflowError ...) — deliberately not the broader Throwable, so other Errors (e.g. OutOfMemoryError) still propagate instead of being silently swallowed.
Added a further fallback inside getStackTrace: if the getStackTrace()-array reconstruction itself throws, fall back to <class name>: <message>, and if even that throws, fall back to just the class name.
Found via Error Tracking issue 03773be6-9b34-11f1-930e-da7ad0900002 (service ci360-engage-optimize): a StackOverflowError in the customer's app was caught by our instrumentation with almost no stack margin left, and capturing its trace triggered a second overflow that propagated out of our error-handling code.

Jira: APMLP-1767

Test plan

Added TestThrowables.throwingStackOverflowOnPrintStackTrace(), throwingStackOverflowEverywhereExceptGetMessage(), and throwingStackOverflowEverywhere(), with unit tests asserting getStackTrace falls back gracefully at each level instead of throwing
./gradlew :dd-trace-core:test --tests "datadog.trace.core.util.StackTracesTest" passes
./gradlew :dd-trace-core:spotlessApply

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

printStackTrace() can itself throw a second StackOverflowError when formatting a throwable caught with little remaining stack margin. The existing fallback only caught Exception, so the second StackOverflowError (an Error) escaped uncaught. Widen the catches to Throwable so it falls through to the manual getStackTrace()-based reconstruction instead. APMLP-1767 Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Widen safeGetMessage's catch to Throwable, and try t.getMessage() in the innermost fallback of StackTraces.getStackTrace before giving up on just the class name, so a bit more diagnostic context survives even when both printStackTrace() and getStackTrace() throw. APMLP-1767 Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

dd-octo-sts · 2026-08-18T19:55:16Z

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datadog-prod-us1-4

A recovered long stack trace still enters a final truncation block that catches only Exception, allowing another StackOverflowError to escape under the same low-stack condition this change targets.

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dd-octo-sts · 2026-08-18T20:08:19Z

🟢 Java Benchmark SLOs — All performance SLOs passed

Suite	Status
Startup	🟢 pass

SLO thresholds are defined here based on automatically generated metrics. A warning is raised when results are within 5% of the threshold.

PR vs. master results

Scenario	Candidate	master	Δ (95% CI of mean)
startup:insecure-bank:iast:Agent	14.84 s	14.76 s	[-0.4%; +1.5%] (no difference)
startup:insecure-bank:tracing:Agent	13.55 s	13.71 s	[-1.9%; -0.4%] (maybe better)
startup:petclinic:appsec:Agent	16.84 s	16.69 s	[+0.1%; +1.7%] (maybe worse)
startup:petclinic:iast:Agent	16.40 s	16.99 s	[-7.8%; +0.9%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:profiling:Agent	16.72 s	16.60 s	[-0.3%; +1.7%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:sca:Agent	16.75 s	16.69 s	[-0.6%; +1.3%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:tracing:Agent	16.07 s	16.16 s	[-1.4%; +0.3%] (no difference)

Commit: f6a2f4a8 · CI Pipeline · Benchmarking Platform UI

Load and DaCapo benchmarks can be triggered manually in the GitLab pipeline. Results will appear in the Benchmarking Platform UI after completion.

catch (Throwable) also swallowed ThreadDeath and unrelated fatal Errors; narrow to the two cases this fix actually needs to recover from. Also extend the same recovery to the truncate() call so a second StackOverflowError while the stack is still constrained during truncation doesn't escape uncaught. Addresses codex review comments on #12233.

datadog-prod-us1-4

More details

The code now catches StackOverflowError at each stack trace formatting step. Other Error types still pass to the caller.

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dd-octo-sts · 2026-08-21T19:22:23Z

/merge

gh-worker-devflow-routing-ef8351 · 2026-08-21T19:22:28Z

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2026-08-21 19:22:27 UTC ℹ️ Start processing command /merge

2026-08-21 19:22:32 UTC ℹ️ MergeQueue: pull request added to the queue

The expected merge time in master is approximately 2h (p90).

2026-08-21 20:16:19 UTC ℹ️ MergeQueue: This merge request was merged

dougqh and others added 2 commits August 18, 2026 15:42

dougqh marked this pull request as ready for review August 18, 2026 19:55

dougqh requested a review from a team as a code owner August 18, 2026 19:55

dougqh requested a review from mhlidd August 18, 2026 19:55

dd-octo-sts Bot added the tag: ai generated Largely based on code generated by an AI or LLM label Aug 18, 2026

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Comment thread dd-trace-core/src/main/java/datadog/trace/core/util/StackTraces.java Outdated

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dougqh added 2 commits August 18, 2026 16:41

Merge branch 'master' into dougqh/fix-stacktraces-soe-in-error-capture

f6a2f4a

dougqh requested a review from a team as a code owner August 21, 2026 14:38

dougqh requested review from jordan-wong and removed request for a team August 21, 2026 14:38

dougqh enabled auto-merge August 21, 2026 14:38

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dougqh added comp: core Tracer core type: bug fix Bug fix labels Aug 21, 2026

dougqh added this pull request to the merge queue Aug 21, 2026

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gh-worker-dd-mergequeue-cf854d Bot merged commit c162404 into master Aug 21, 2026
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gh-worker-dd-mergequeue-cf854d Bot deleted the dougqh/fix-stacktraces-soe-in-error-capture branch August 21, 2026 20:16

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Fix uncaught StackOverflowError in StackTraces.getStackTrace - #12233

Fix uncaught StackOverflowError in StackTraces.getStackTrace#12233
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