Skip to content

fix(firestore): guard against gRPC call was cancelled exceptions - #8608

Open
dlarocque wants to merge 4 commits into
mainfrom
dl/catch-grpc-call-err
Open

dlarocque wants to merge 4 commits into
mainfrom
dl/catch-grpc-call-err

Conversation

@dlarocque

@dlarocque dlarocque commented Sep 16, 2026 •

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

gRPC calls (ClientCall) can be cancelled due to network changes, timeouts, or channel resets. After a call is cancelled, all subsequent operations throw IllegalStateException: call was cancelled exception. In the SDK, there are paths where operations run on a already cancelled call. When these exceptions are unhandled, they go up to AsyncQueue and trigger AsyncQueue.panic(), crashing the application.

This was first reported in #6883, where call.halfClose operation is ran on a call that was already cancelled, causing crashes. This issue was closed by #6894, which wrapped the operation in a try/catch, and logged the error instead. This did not fully fix the issue, since 1) there are other other operations that can run on a cancelled call, which were not wrapped in try/catch (e.g. writeRequest -> call.sendMessage()), 2) operations can run in the AsyncQueue executor, and cannot be easily wrapped in a try/catch. These cases were reported recently in #8601.

This change addresses the two additional cases; the call.sendMessage() call is guarded, and a guardedGrpcExecutor was created to catch the call was cancelled exceptions from gRPC channels.

Notes:

  • I wasn't able to reproduce the reported crashes locally.
  • The guardedGrpcExecutor only catches IllegalStateException: call was cancelled with message containing call was cancelled. Any other exceptions here that are causing crashes, will still cause crashes.

@gemini-code-assist

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor
Using Gemini Code Assist

The full guide for Gemini Code Assist can be found on our documentation page, here are some quick tips.

Invoking Gemini

You can request assistance from Gemini at any point by creating a comment using either /gemini <command> or @gemini-code-assist <command>. Below is a summary of the supported commands on the current page.

Feature Command Description
Code Review /gemini review Performs a code review for the current pull request in its current state.
Pull Request Summary /gemini summary Provides a summary of the current pull request in its current state.
Comment @gemini-code-assist Responds in comments when explicitly tagged, both in pull request comments and review comments.
Help /gemini help Displays a list of available commands.

Customization

To customize the Gemini Code Assist for GitHub experience, repository maintainers can create a configuration file and/or provide a custom code review style guide (such as PEP-8 for Python) by creating and adding files to a .gemini/ folder in the base of the repository. Detailed instructions can be found here.

Limitations & Feedback

Gemini Code Assist may make mistakes. Please leave feedback on any instances where its feedback is incorrect or counterproductive. You can react with 👍 and 👎 on @gemini-code-assist comments. If you're interested in giving your feedback about your experience with Gemini Code Assist for GitHub and other Google products, sign up here.

@github-actions

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

📝 PRs merging into main branch

Our main branch should always be in a releasable state. If you are working on a larger change, or if you don't want this change to see the light of the day just yet, consider using a feature branch first, and only merge into the main branch when the code complete and ready to be released.

@dlarocque
dlarocque requested a review from wu-hui September 16, 2026 18:49
@mehdiyari

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Hi team, any update on this PR?

@dlarocque

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

Hi team, any update on this PR?

Hi @mehdiyari, no updates, this is still in review.

try {
call.sendMessage(message);
} catch (IllegalStateException e) {
if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().contains("call was cancelled")) {

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

It's preferred not to branch on the exception message, because the message isn't part of gRPC's API contract.

A better approach would be to track the cancelled state ourselves. This IllegalStateException is only thrown after ClientCall.cancel() has been called. Network errors and deadlines report through onClose() instead. In our case the cancel most likely comes from our own channel.shutdownNow() in GrpcCallProvider.resetChannel(). So if we mark the streams or channel as cancelled before calling shutdownNow(), we can skip sendMessage() and halfClose() without catching anything. Relying on onClose() alone wouldn't be enough, because it's delivered asynchronously after the cancel.

If we don't want to do that refactor now: there's no error code or exception subtype to check instead. To make the message check safer, the tests should run against real gRPC instead of mocking new IllegalStateException("call was cancelled"). As written, if gRPC rewords the message, the tests still pass and the crashes come back. A test using a real in-process channel (start, cancel(), then sendMessage()) would catch a reworded message.

// Simulate gRPC ClientCallImpl.sendMessageInternal() throwing on cancelled call
Mockito.doThrow(new IllegalStateException("call was cancelled"))
.when(mockCall)
.sendMessage(Mockito.any());

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

To make the message check safer, the tests should run against real gRPC instead of mocking new IllegalStateException("call was cancelled"). As written, if gRPC rewords the message, the tests still pass and the crashes come back. A test using a real in-process channel (start, cancel(), then sendMessage()) would catch a reworded message.

Runnable delayedDrainRunnable =
() -> {
try {
throw new IllegalStateException("call was cancelled");

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

To make the message check safer, the tests should run against real gRPC instead of mocking new IllegalStateException("call was cancelled"). As written, if gRPC rewords the message, the tests still pass and the crashes come back. A test using a real in-process channel (start, cancel(), then sendMessage()) would catch a reworded message.

This branch has not been deployed

No deployments
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants