Reduce memory required for search responses when many shards are unav…

…ailable (#91365) (#92907)

When there are many shards unavailable, we repeatably store the exact same stack trace and exception. The only difference is the exception message. 

This commit fixes this by slightly modifying the created exception to not provide a stacktrace or print its stacktrace as a "reason" when a shard is unavailable.


closes #90622

docs/changelog/91365.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+pr: 91365
+summary: Reduce memory required for search responses when many shards are unavailable
+area: Search
+type: bug
+issues:
+ - 90622

server/src/internalClusterTest/java/org/elasticsearch/search/basic/SearchRedStateIndexIT.java

@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@
 import static org.elasticsearch.test.hamcrest.ElasticsearchAssertions.assertAcked;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.allOf;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.containsString;
+import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.emptyArray;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.greaterThan;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.instanceOf;
@@ -67,6 +68,9 @@ public void testClusterAllowPartialsWithRedState() throws Exception {
         assertThat("Expected total shards", searchResponse.getTotalShards(), equalTo(numShards));
         for (ShardSearchFailure failure : searchResponse.getShardFailures()) {
             assertThat(failure.getCause(), instanceOf(NoShardAvailableActionException.class));
+            assertThat(failure.getCause().getStackTrace(), emptyArray());
+            // We don't write out the entire, repetitive stacktrace in the reason
+            assertThat(failure.reason(), equalTo("org.elasticsearch.action.NoShardAvailableActionException\n"));
         }
     }
 

server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/NoShardAvailableActionException.java

@@ -14,20 +14,36 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.rest.RestStatus;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.PrintWriter;
 
 public class NoShardAvailableActionException extends ElasticsearchException {
 
+    private static final StackTraceElement[] EMPTY_STACK_TRACE = new StackTraceElement[0];
+
+    // This is set so that no StackTrace is serialized in the scenario when we wrap other shard failures.
+    // It isn't necessary to serialize this field over the wire as the empty stack trace is serialized instead.
+    private final boolean onShardFailureWrapper;
+
+    public static NoShardAvailableActionException forOnShardFailureWrapper(String msg) {
+        return new NoShardAvailableActionException(null, msg, null, true);
+    }
+
     public NoShardAvailableActionException(ShardId shardId) {
-        this(shardId, null);
+        this(shardId, null, null, false);
     }
 
     public NoShardAvailableActionException(ShardId shardId, String msg) {
-        this(shardId, msg, null);
+        this(shardId, msg, null, false);
     }
 
     public NoShardAvailableActionException(ShardId shardId, String msg, Throwable cause) {
+        this(shardId, msg, cause, false);
+    }
+
+    private NoShardAvailableActionException(ShardId shardId, String msg, Throwable cause, boolean onShardFailureWrapper) {
         super(msg, cause);
         setShard(shardId);
+        this.onShardFailureWrapper = onShardFailureWrapper;
     }
 
     @Override
@@ -37,5 +53,22 @@ public RestStatus status() {
 
     public NoShardAvailableActionException(StreamInput in) throws IOException {
         super(in);
+        onShardFailureWrapper = false;
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public StackTraceElement[] getStackTrace() {
+        return onShardFailureWrapper ? EMPTY_STACK_TRACE : super.getStackTrace();
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void printStackTrace(PrintWriter s) {
+        if (onShardFailureWrapper == false) {
+            super.printStackTrace(s);
+        } else {
+            // Override to simply print the first line of the trace, which is the current exception.
+            // Since we aren't serializing the repetitive stacktrace onShardFailureWrapper, we shouldn't print it out either
+            s.println(this);
+        }
     }
 }

server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/search/AbstractSearchAsyncAction.java

@@ -544,7 +544,7 @@ public final void onShardFailure(final int shardIndex, SearchShardTarget shardTa
         if (TransportActions.isShardNotAvailableException(e)) {
             // Groups shard not available exceptions under a generic exception that returns a SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE(503)
             // temporary error.
-            e = new NoShardAvailableActionException(shardTarget.getShardId(), e.getMessage());
+            e = NoShardAvailableActionException.forOnShardFailureWrapper(e.getMessage());
         }
         // we don't aggregate shard on failures due to the internal cancellation,
         // but do keep the header counts right

server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/action/search/ShardSearchFailure.java

@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@ public ShardSearchFailure(Exception e, @Nullable SearchShardTarget shardTarget)
 
     /**
      * The search shard target the failure occurred on.
+     * @return The shardTarget, may be null
      */
     @Nullable
     public SearchShardTarget shard() {
@@ -95,7 +96,6 @@ public String toString() {
 
     public static ShardSearchFailure readShardSearchFailure(StreamInput in) throws IOException {
         return new ShardSearchFailure(in);
-
     }
 
     @Override

server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/action/search/ShardSearchFailureTests.java

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 
 package org.elasticsearch.action.search;
 
+import org.elasticsearch.action.NoShardAvailableActionException;
 import org.elasticsearch.cluster.metadata.IndexMetadata;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.ParsingException;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.bytes.BytesReference;
@@ -28,17 +29,17 @@
 
 public class ShardSearchFailureTests extends ESTestCase {
 
+    private static SearchShardTarget randomShardTarget(String indexUuid) {
+        String nodeId = randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10);
+        String indexName = randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10);
+        String clusterAlias = randomBoolean() ? randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10) : null;
+        return new SearchShardTarget(nodeId, new ShardId(new Index(indexName, indexUuid), randomInt()), clusterAlias);
+    }
+
     public static ShardSearchFailure createTestItem(String indexUuid) {
         String randomMessage = randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(3, 20);
         Exception ex = new ParsingException(0, 0, randomMessage, new IllegalArgumentException("some bad argument"));
-        SearchShardTarget searchShardTarget = null;
-        if (randomBoolean()) {
-            String nodeId = randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10);
-            String indexName = randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10);
-            String clusterAlias = randomBoolean() ? randomAlphaOfLengthBetween(5, 10) : null;
-            searchShardTarget = new SearchShardTarget(nodeId, new ShardId(new Index(indexName, indexUuid), randomInt()), clusterAlias);
-        }
-        return new ShardSearchFailure(ex, searchShardTarget);
+        return new ShardSearchFailure(ex, randomBoolean() ? randomShardTarget(indexUuid) : null);
     }
 
     public void testFromXContent() throws IOException {
@@ -110,6 +111,22 @@ public void testToXContent() throws IOException {
             }"""), xContent.utf8ToString());
     }
 
+    public void testToXContentForNoShardAvailable() throws IOException {
+        ShardId shardId = new ShardId(new Index("indexName", "indexUuid"), 123);
+        ShardSearchFailure failure = new ShardSearchFailure(
+            NoShardAvailableActionException.forOnShardFailureWrapper("shard unassigned"),
+            new SearchShardTarget("nodeId", shardId, null)
+        );
+        BytesReference xContent = toXContent(failure, XContentType.JSON, randomBoolean());
+        assertEquals(XContentHelper.stripWhitespace("""
+            {
+              "shard": 123,
+              "index": "indexName",
+              "node": "nodeId",
+              "reason":{"type":"no_shard_available_action_exception","reason":"shard unassigned"}
+            }"""), xContent.utf8ToString());
+    }
+
     public void testToXContentWithClusterAlias() throws IOException {
         ShardSearchFailure failure = new ShardSearchFailure(
             new ParsingException(0, 0, "some message", null),
@@ -131,17 +148,25 @@ public void testToXContentWithClusterAlias() throws IOException {
     }
 
     public void testSerialization() throws IOException {
-        ShardSearchFailure testItem = createTestItem(randomAlphaOfLength(12));
-        ShardSearchFailure deserializedInstance = copyWriteable(
-            testItem,
-            writableRegistry(),
-            ShardSearchFailure::new,
-            VersionUtils.randomVersion(random())
-        );
-        assertEquals(testItem.index(), deserializedInstance.index());
-        assertEquals(testItem.shard(), deserializedInstance.shard());
-        assertEquals(testItem.shardId(), deserializedInstance.shardId());
-        assertEquals(testItem.reason(), deserializedInstance.reason());
-        assertEquals(testItem.status(), deserializedInstance.status());
+        for (int runs = 0; runs < 25; runs++) {
+            final ShardSearchFailure testItem;
+            if (randomBoolean()) {
+                testItem = createTestItem(randomAlphaOfLength(12));
+            } else {
+                SearchShardTarget target = randomShardTarget(randomAlphaOfLength(12));
+                testItem = new ShardSearchFailure(NoShardAvailableActionException.forOnShardFailureWrapper("unavailable"), target);
+            }
+            ShardSearchFailure deserializedInstance = copyWriteable(
+                testItem,
+                writableRegistry(),
+                ShardSearchFailure::new,
+                VersionUtils.randomVersion(random())
+            );
+            assertEquals(testItem.index(), deserializedInstance.index());
+            assertEquals(testItem.shard(), deserializedInstance.shard());
+            assertEquals(testItem.shardId(), deserializedInstance.shardId());
+            assertEquals(testItem.reason(), deserializedInstance.reason());
+            assertEquals(testItem.status(), deserializedInstance.status());
+        }
     }
 }