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model/histogram: Make histogram bucket iterators more robust#17559

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beorn7 merged 1 commit intomainfrom
beorn7/histogram3
Nov 20, 2025
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model/histogram: Make histogram bucket iterators more robust#17559
beorn7 merged 1 commit intomainfrom
beorn7/histogram3

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@beorn7 beorn7 commented Nov 19, 2025

Currently, iterating over histogram buckets can panic if the spans are not consistent with the buckets. We aim for validating histograms upon ingestion, but there might still be data corruptions on disk that could trigger the panic. While data corruption on disk is really bad and will lead to all kind of weirdness, we should still avoid panic'ing.

Note, though, that chunks are secured by checksums, so the corruptions won't realistically happen because of disk faults, but more likely because a chunk was generated in a faulty way in the first place, by a software bug or even maliciously.

This commit prevents panics in the situation where there are fewer buckets than described by the spans. Note that the missing buckets will simply not be iterated over. There is no signalling of this problem. We might still consider this separately, but for now, I would say that this kind of corruption is exceedingly rare and doesn't deserve special treatment (which will add a whole lot of complexity to the code).

This PR is inspired by a finding by @0xkato. @0xkato feel free to help with the review here.

(Note that I found another path of triggering panics while researching @0xkato's report. I'll address this other case in a separate PR.)

Does this PR introduce a user-facing change?

[BUGFIX] Do not panic while iterating over invalid histograms.

Currently, iterating over histogram buckets can panic if the spans are
not consistent with the buckets. We aim for validating histograms upon
ingestion, but there might still be data corruptions on disk that
could trigger the panic. While data corruption on disk is really bad
and will lead to all kind of weirdness, we should still avoid
panic'ing.

Note, though, that chunks are secured by checksums, so the corruptions
won't realistically happen because of disk faults, but more likely
because a chunk was generated in a faulty way in the first place, by
a software bug or even maliciously.

This commit prevents panics in the situation where there are fewer
buckets than described by the spans. Note that the missing buckets
will simply not be iterated over. There is no signalling of this
problem. We might still consider this separately, but for now, I would
say that this kind of corruption is exceedingly rare and doesn't
deserve special treatment (which will add a whole lot of complexity to
the code).

Signed-off-by: beorn7 <beorn@grafana.com>
@beorn7 beorn7 requested a review from krajorama November 19, 2025 16:35
@beorn7 beorn7 marked this pull request as draft November 19, 2025 17:29
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beorn7 commented Nov 19, 2025

Looking into failing concurrency tests.

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beorn7 commented Nov 19, 2025

I think the test failure was a fluke. I couldn't understand how it is connected to the change. I couldn't reproduce it locally. And when I re-ran it here, it succeeded.

@beorn7 beorn7 marked this pull request as ready for review November 19, 2025 23:03
@krajorama krajorama self-assigned this Nov 20, 2025
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LGTM, I also only found these uses of the relevant interator data fields. Coverage is 100% on the new code.

@beorn7 beorn7 merged commit 5947cc1 into main Nov 20, 2025
62 of 64 checks passed
@beorn7 beorn7 deleted the beorn7/histogram3 branch November 20, 2025 13:07
renovate bot added a commit to sdwilsh/ansible-playbooks that referenced this pull request Jan 10, 2026
##### [\`v3.9.0\`](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/tag/v3.9.0)

#### Note for users of Native Histograms

In version 3.9, Native Histograms is no longer experimental, and the feature flag `native-histogram` has no effect.  You must now turn on
the config setting `scrape_native_histograms` to collect Native Histogram samples from exporters.

#### Changelog

- \[CHANGE] Native Histograms are no longer experimental! Make the `native-histogram` feature flag a no-op. Use `scrape_native_histograms` config option instead. [#17528](prometheus/prometheus#17528)
- \[CHANGE] API: Add maximum limit of 10,000 sets of statistics to TSDB status endpoint. [#17647](prometheus/prometheus#17647)
- \[FEATURE] API: Add /api/v1/features for clients to understand which features are supported. [#17427](prometheus/prometheus#17427)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `start_timestamp` field for unit tests. [#17636](prometheus/prometheus#17636)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `--format seriesjson` option to `tsdb dump` to output just series labels in JSON format. [#13409](prometheus/prometheus#13409)
- \[FEATURE] Add `--storage.tsdb.delay-compact-file.path` flag for better interoperability with Thanos. [#17435](prometheus/prometheus#17435)
- \[FEATURE] UI: Add an option on the query drop-down menu to duplicate that query panel. [#17714](prometheus/prometheus#17714)
- \[ENHANCEMENT]: TSDB: add flag `--storage.tsdb.block-reload-interval` to configure TSDB Block Reload Interval. [#16728](prometheus/prometheus#16728)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] UI: Add graph option to start the chart's Y axis at zero. [#17565](prometheus/prometheus#17565)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Scraping: Classic protobuf format no longer requires the unit in the metric name. [#16834](prometheus/prometheus#16834)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] PromQL, Rules, SD, Scraping: Add native histograms to complement existing summaries. [#17374](prometheus/prometheus#17374)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Notifications: Add a histogram `prometheus_notifications_latency_histogram_seconds` to complement the existing summary. [#16637](prometheus/prometheus#16637)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-write: Add custom scope support for AzureAD authentication. [#17483](prometheus/prometheus#17483)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] SD: add a `config` label with job name for most `prometheus_sd_refresh` metrics. [#17138](prometheus/prometheus#17138)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] TSDB: New histogram `prometheus_tsdb_sample_ooo_delta`, the distribution of out-of-order samples in seconds. Collected for all samples, accepted or not. [#17477](prometheus/prometheus#17477)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-read: Validate histograms received via remote-read. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[PERF] TSDB: Small optimizations to postings index. [#17439](prometheus/prometheus#17439)
- \[PERF] Scraping: Speed up relabelling of series. [#17530](prometheus/prometheus#17530)
- \[PERF] PromQL: Small optimisations in binary operators. [#17524](prometheus/prometheus#17524), [#17519](prometheus/prometheus#17519).
- \[BUGFIX] UI: PromQL autocomplete now shows the correct type and HELP text for OpenMetrics counters whose samples end in `_total`. [#17682](prometheus/prometheus#17682)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Fixed codemirror-promql incorrectly showing label completion suggestions after the closing curly brace of a vector selector. [#17602](prometheus/prometheus#17602)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Query editor no longer suggests a duration unit if one is already present after a number. [#17605](prometheus/prometheus#17605)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix some "vector cannot contain metrics with the same labelset" errors when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17678](prometheus/prometheus#17678)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix possible corruption of PromQL text if the query had an empty `ignoring()` and non-empty grouping. [#17643](prometheus/prometheus#17643)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix resets/changes to return empty results for anchored selectors when all samples are outside the range. [#17479](prometheus/prometheus#17479)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Check more consistently for many-to-one matching in filter binary operators. [#17668](prometheus/prometheus#17668)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in unary negation with non-overlapping series. [#17708](prometheus/prometheus#17708)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in label\_join and label\_replace with non-overlapping series. [#17703](prometheus/prometheus#17703)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix bug with inconsistent results for queries with OR expression when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17161](prometheus/prometheus#17161)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Ensure that `rate`/`increase`/`delta` of histograms results in a gauge histogram. [#17608](prometheus/prometheus#17608)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Do not panic while iterating over invalid histograms. [#17559](prometheus/prometheus#17559)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Reject chunk files whose encoded chunk length overflows int. [#17533](prometheus/prometheus#17533)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Do not panic during resolution reduction of invalid histograms. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[BUGFIX] Remote-write Receive: Avoid duplicate labels when experimental type-and-unit-label feature is enabled. [#17546](prometheus/prometheus#17546)
- \[BUGFIX] OTLP Receiver: Only write metadata to disk when experimental metadata-wal-records feature is enabled. [#17472](prometheus/prometheus#17472)
renovate bot added a commit to sdwilsh/ansible-playbooks that referenced this pull request Jan 10, 2026
##### [\`v3.9.1\`](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/tag/v3.9.1)

- \[BUGFIX] Agent: fix crash shortly after startup from invalid type of object. [#17802](prometheus/prometheus#17802)
- \[BUGFIX] Scraping: fix relabel keep/drop not working. [#17807](prometheus/prometheus#17807)

---
##### [\`v3.9.0\`](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/tag/v3.9.0)

#### Note for users of Native Histograms

In version 3.9, Native Histograms is no longer experimental, and the feature flag `native-histogram` has no effect.  You must now turn on
the config setting `scrape_native_histograms` to collect Native Histogram samples from exporters.

#### Changelog

- \[CHANGE] Native Histograms are no longer experimental! Make the `native-histogram` feature flag a no-op. Use `scrape_native_histograms` config option instead. [#17528](prometheus/prometheus#17528)
- \[CHANGE] API: Add maximum limit of 10,000 sets of statistics to TSDB status endpoint. [#17647](prometheus/prometheus#17647)
- \[FEATURE] API: Add /api/v1/features for clients to understand which features are supported. [#17427](prometheus/prometheus#17427)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `start_timestamp` field for unit tests. [#17636](prometheus/prometheus#17636)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `--format seriesjson` option to `tsdb dump` to output just series labels in JSON format. [#13409](prometheus/prometheus#13409)
- \[FEATURE] Add `--storage.tsdb.delay-compact-file.path` flag for better interoperability with Thanos. [#17435](prometheus/prometheus#17435)
- \[FEATURE] UI: Add an option on the query drop-down menu to duplicate that query panel. [#17714](prometheus/prometheus#17714)
- \[ENHANCEMENT]: TSDB: add flag `--storage.tsdb.block-reload-interval` to configure TSDB Block Reload Interval. [#16728](prometheus/prometheus#16728)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] UI: Add graph option to start the chart's Y axis at zero. [#17565](prometheus/prometheus#17565)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Scraping: Classic protobuf format no longer requires the unit in the metric name. [#16834](prometheus/prometheus#16834)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] PromQL, Rules, SD, Scraping: Add native histograms to complement existing summaries. [#17374](prometheus/prometheus#17374)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Notifications: Add a histogram `prometheus_notifications_latency_histogram_seconds` to complement the existing summary. [#16637](prometheus/prometheus#16637)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-write: Add custom scope support for AzureAD authentication. [#17483](prometheus/prometheus#17483)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] SD: add a `config` label with job name for most `prometheus_sd_refresh` metrics. [#17138](prometheus/prometheus#17138)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] TSDB: New histogram `prometheus_tsdb_sample_ooo_delta`, the distribution of out-of-order samples in seconds. Collected for all samples, accepted or not. [#17477](prometheus/prometheus#17477)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-read: Validate histograms received via remote-read. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[PERF] TSDB: Small optimizations to postings index. [#17439](prometheus/prometheus#17439)
- \[PERF] Scraping: Speed up relabelling of series. [#17530](prometheus/prometheus#17530)
- \[PERF] PromQL: Small optimisations in binary operators. [#17524](prometheus/prometheus#17524), [#17519](prometheus/prometheus#17519).
- \[BUGFIX] UI: PromQL autocomplete now shows the correct type and HELP text for OpenMetrics counters whose samples end in `_total`. [#17682](prometheus/prometheus#17682)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Fixed codemirror-promql incorrectly showing label completion suggestions after the closing curly brace of a vector selector. [#17602](prometheus/prometheus#17602)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Query editor no longer suggests a duration unit if one is already present after a number. [#17605](prometheus/prometheus#17605)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix some "vector cannot contain metrics with the same labelset" errors when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17678](prometheus/prometheus#17678)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix possible corruption of PromQL text if the query had an empty `ignoring()` and non-empty grouping. [#17643](prometheus/prometheus#17643)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix resets/changes to return empty results for anchored selectors when all samples are outside the range. [#17479](prometheus/prometheus#17479)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Check more consistently for many-to-one matching in filter binary operators. [#17668](prometheus/prometheus#17668)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in unary negation with non-overlapping series. [#17708](prometheus/prometheus#17708)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in label\_join and label\_replace with non-overlapping series. [#17703](prometheus/prometheus#17703)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix bug with inconsistent results for queries with OR expression when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17161](prometheus/prometheus#17161)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Ensure that `rate`/`increase`/`delta` of histograms results in a gauge histogram. [#17608](prometheus/prometheus#17608)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Do not panic while iterating over invalid histograms. [#17559](prometheus/prometheus#17559)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Reject chunk files whose encoded chunk length overflows int. [#17533](prometheus/prometheus#17533)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Do not panic during resolution reduction of invalid histograms. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[BUGFIX] Remote-write Receive: Avoid duplicate labels when experimental type-and-unit-label feature is enabled. [#17546](prometheus/prometheus#17546)
- \[BUGFIX] OTLP Receiver: Only write metadata to disk when experimental metadata-wal-records feature is enabled. [#17472](prometheus/prometheus#17472)
renovate bot added a commit to sdwilsh/ansible-playbooks that referenced this pull request Jan 10, 2026
##### [\`v3.9.1\`](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/tag/v3.9.1)

- \[BUGFIX] Agent: fix crash shortly after startup from invalid type of object. [#17802](prometheus/prometheus#17802)
- \[BUGFIX] Scraping: fix relabel keep/drop not working. [#17807](prometheus/prometheus#17807)

---
##### [\`v3.9.0\`](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases/tag/v3.9.0)

#### Note for users of Native Histograms

In version 3.9, Native Histograms is no longer experimental, and the feature flag `native-histogram` has no effect.  You must now turn on
the config setting `scrape_native_histograms` to collect Native Histogram samples from exporters.

#### Changelog

- \[CHANGE] Native Histograms are no longer experimental! Make the `native-histogram` feature flag a no-op. Use `scrape_native_histograms` config option instead. [#17528](prometheus/prometheus#17528)
- \[CHANGE] API: Add maximum limit of 10,000 sets of statistics to TSDB status endpoint. [#17647](prometheus/prometheus#17647)
- \[FEATURE] API: Add /api/v1/features for clients to understand which features are supported. [#17427](prometheus/prometheus#17427)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `start_timestamp` field for unit tests. [#17636](prometheus/prometheus#17636)
- \[FEATURE] Promtool: Add `--format seriesjson` option to `tsdb dump` to output just series labels in JSON format. [#13409](prometheus/prometheus#13409)
- \[FEATURE] Add `--storage.tsdb.delay-compact-file.path` flag for better interoperability with Thanos. [#17435](prometheus/prometheus#17435)
- \[FEATURE] UI: Add an option on the query drop-down menu to duplicate that query panel. [#17714](prometheus/prometheus#17714)
- \[ENHANCEMENT]: TSDB: add flag `--storage.tsdb.block-reload-interval` to configure TSDB Block Reload Interval. [#16728](prometheus/prometheus#16728)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] UI: Add graph option to start the chart's Y axis at zero. [#17565](prometheus/prometheus#17565)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Scraping: Classic protobuf format no longer requires the unit in the metric name. [#16834](prometheus/prometheus#16834)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] PromQL, Rules, SD, Scraping: Add native histograms to complement existing summaries. [#17374](prometheus/prometheus#17374)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Notifications: Add a histogram `prometheus_notifications_latency_histogram_seconds` to complement the existing summary. [#16637](prometheus/prometheus#16637)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-write: Add custom scope support for AzureAD authentication. [#17483](prometheus/prometheus#17483)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] SD: add a `config` label with job name for most `prometheus_sd_refresh` metrics. [#17138](prometheus/prometheus#17138)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] TSDB: New histogram `prometheus_tsdb_sample_ooo_delta`, the distribution of out-of-order samples in seconds. Collected for all samples, accepted or not. [#17477](prometheus/prometheus#17477)
- \[ENHANCEMENT] Remote-read: Validate histograms received via remote-read. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[PERF] TSDB: Small optimizations to postings index. [#17439](prometheus/prometheus#17439)
- \[PERF] Scraping: Speed up relabelling of series. [#17530](prometheus/prometheus#17530)
- \[PERF] PromQL: Small optimisations in binary operators. [#17524](prometheus/prometheus#17524), [#17519](prometheus/prometheus#17519).
- \[BUGFIX] UI: PromQL autocomplete now shows the correct type and HELP text for OpenMetrics counters whose samples end in `_total`. [#17682](prometheus/prometheus#17682)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Fixed codemirror-promql incorrectly showing label completion suggestions after the closing curly brace of a vector selector. [#17602](prometheus/prometheus#17602)
- \[BUGFIX] UI: Query editor no longer suggests a duration unit if one is already present after a number. [#17605](prometheus/prometheus#17605)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix some "vector cannot contain metrics with the same labelset" errors when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17678](prometheus/prometheus#17678)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix possible corruption of PromQL text if the query had an empty `ignoring()` and non-empty grouping. [#17643](prometheus/prometheus#17643)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix resets/changes to return empty results for anchored selectors when all samples are outside the range. [#17479](prometheus/prometheus#17479)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Check more consistently for many-to-one matching in filter binary operators. [#17668](prometheus/prometheus#17668)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in unary negation with non-overlapping series. [#17708](prometheus/prometheus#17708)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix collision in label\_join and label\_replace with non-overlapping series. [#17703](prometheus/prometheus#17703)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Fix bug with inconsistent results for queries with OR expression when experimental delayed name removal is enabled. [#17161](prometheus/prometheus#17161)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Ensure that `rate`/`increase`/`delta` of histograms results in a gauge histogram. [#17608](prometheus/prometheus#17608)
- \[BUGFIX] PromQL: Do not panic while iterating over invalid histograms. [#17559](prometheus/prometheus#17559)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Reject chunk files whose encoded chunk length overflows int. [#17533](prometheus/prometheus#17533)
- \[BUGFIX] TSDB: Do not panic during resolution reduction of invalid histograms. [#17561](prometheus/prometheus#17561)
- \[BUGFIX] Remote-write Receive: Avoid duplicate labels when experimental type-and-unit-label feature is enabled. [#17546](prometheus/prometheus#17546)
- \[BUGFIX] OTLP Receiver: Only write metadata to disk when experimental metadata-wal-records feature is enabled. [#17472](prometheus/prometheus#17472)
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