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Don't return the read buffer of a broken connector to the ArrayPool by Brar · Pull Request #6717 · npgsql/npgsql · GitHub
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Don't return the read buffer of a broken connector to the ArrayPool - #6717

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Brar:repl/pooled-buffer-on-break
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Brar wants to merge 6 commits into
npgsql:mainfrom
Brar:repl/pooled-buffer-on-break

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@Brar

@Brar Brar commented Oct 25, 2026 •

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Depends on #6689, #6690, #6709, #6715 and #6716, which aren't merged yet; their commits show up here until they are.

After a backend message longer than the read buffer (e.g. a notice over 8 KB), the connector reads into a bigger buffer whose array comes from ArrayPool<byte>.Shared, and a replication stream reads from it for the rest of the session. When the connector broke while the consumer held a message (e.g. because a status update failed), disposing the buffer returned the array to the pool, but the consumer could still read the message's data from it. If something else rented the array meanwhile, the consumer silently got that renter's bytes instead.

The buffer of a broken connector now leaves its array to the GC instead of returning it to the pool. Closing a connector, resetting a pooled one and switching to an even bigger buffer still return it.

How a real server gets there

Three things have to come together:

  1. A pooled oversize buffer while a message is held. Mid-stream, through the notices that Read pgoutput messages from the connector's current read buffer #6721 describes (a publication row filter, the walsender's echo of the replication command). On main as well, through any message longer than the buffer on the same connection before START_REPLICATION, since the stream then starts on the bigger buffer: e.g. TIMELINE_HISTORY of a cluster with about 190 or more timelines, whose history file comes in one DataRow (walsender.c:609, :632 on REL_18_STABLE), or SHOW of a long setting. Clients that work like pg_receivewal run IDENTIFY_SYSTEM, TIMELINE_HISTORY and START_REPLICATION on one connection.
  2. A real break while the consumer holds the message: pg_terminate_backend, a restart, a failover or wal_sender_timeout. The feedback timer's next write then breaks the connector, and its cleanup disposes the read buffer.
  3. Other code in the process rents an array of that size before the consumer reads. That is plausible in a busy process, but nothing forces it.

Live, with a held XLogData message and pg_terminate_backend; an EventListener rented the returned array right when it went back to the pool and filled it with 0xEE, standing in for the other renter:

  • main on 13.23, after a TIMELINE_HISTORY of 8691 bytes (200 promotions), and main on 18.6, after a 20000-character SHOW result: the held message read EEEE…, silently wrong WAL bytes.
  • pgoutput rows, after a row-filter notice or the command echo, with Read pgoutput messages from the connector's current read buffer #6721 but without this change: the corrupted held row failed in the tuple enumerator.
  • With this change, the array was never returned, and the data stayed intact. Control: without an oversize message, nothing was returned, and the data stayed intact.

Tests

ReplicationStopMockTests.Held_message_keeps_its_data_after_a_break: an oversize notice, then a held XLogData; the test breaks the connector, rents an array of the buffer's size on the same thread (ArrayPool hands a thread the array it returned last), fills it and reads the held data.

  • Red first: the oversize case read 238 (0xEE) instead of 97 ('a'), in Debug and Release. The control without the notice (an unpooled buffer) passed.
  • Probes that weren't committed: an EventListener showed that without the fix the break returns the array, also on the timer's thread for a failed timer status update, and with it doesn't; after a break with the fix, the GC collected the array once the connection and its message were unreachable.

For the reviewer

  • A core change in NpgsqlReadBuffer, whose Dispose NpgsqlConnector calls when it breaks; no API change. It is needed because a broken replication connector can still have a consumer that reads a held message from that buffer.
  • Only NpgsqlConnector disposes read buffers, and nothing depends on the return. Regular connections only differ in that a broken connector's oversize array goes to the GC.
  • Not changed: a normal DisposeAsync while the consumer holds a message still returns the array; reading a held message after that is outside the API's contract.
  • Backport: planned for the 10.0, 9.0 and 8.0 hotfix branches, since main has the bug through an oversize message before START_REPLICATION.

Dependencies and merge order

Part of #6699 (#6721 completes it).

Brar and others added 6 commits October 25, 2026 13:26
PgServerMock can now play a walsender: CopyBothResponse, CopyData,
XLogData and keepalive messages, CopyDone, CopyOutResponse and
NoticeResponse writers, NULL DataRow columns, a configurable
server_version, the parsed startup parameters (e.g. "replication") and
Expect helpers for CopyDone, Terminate and standby status updates.

This also fixes length bugs that were hidden because the client parses
these messages by content (CopyInResponse, ParameterDescription and
ErrorResponse sent wrong lengths), and ExpectMessage skipped
synchronously without ensuring the message was fully received.

ReplicationMock opens replication connections against the mock with the
feedback timers disabled, and ReplicationMockTests smoke-tests startup,
IDENTIFY_SYSTEM, physical streaming, keepalive replies and cancellation,
with timeouts on both the client and the mock side.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…ections

- TimelineHistory threw an InvalidCastException on PostgreSQL 14 and
  later, which declare the content column as text instead of bytea. The
  column carries the raw bytes of the history file either way, so it is
  now read as raw bytes. That also stops bytea unescaping from mangling
  backslashes in the content on older servers, and leaves the bytea
  parsing without a use, so it is removed.
- Show("all") returns many rows, which made the command helper expect
  CommandComplete, get another DataRow and break the connection. Further
  rows are now skipped, and Show throws NotSupportedException for results
  that aren't a single value, leaving the connection usable.
- The ReplicationConnection.CommandTimeout property was ignored for
  replication commands, since every command reset the timeouts to the
  connection string's command timeout. It now applies to all commands,
  and setting it before Open no longer throws. Timeouts that don't fit
  into an int of milliseconds (e.g. TimeSpan.MaxValue) mean no timeout.
- StartReplication(PhysicalReplicationSlot, CancellationToken) throws
  ArgumentNullException for a null slot instead of a
  NullReferenceException.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
PgTestCluster creates PostgreSQL clusters in temporary directories with
the binaries that NPGSQL_TEST_PG_BIN points to (initdb, pg_ctl,
pg_basebackup): a primary that allows physical and logical replication,
streaming standbys of it, promotion and shutdown in any mode. This
covers tests that can't run against the shared test server, like
timeline switches and server shutdowns. Tests using it are ignored when
the variable isn't set, so CI is unaffected.

The clusters listen on 127.0.0.1 only (no Unix sockets, whose default
directory isn't writable for unprivileged users on Debian-based
builds), pick a free port right before each start, retry when another
process took it, and limit every step to well below CI's 30 seconds per
test.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- At the end of a historic timeline (e.g. after the standby we stream
  from got promoted), the server ends copy mode with CopyDone. Npgsql
  expected only CopyData and broke the connection ("Received backend
  message CopyDone while expecting CopyDataMessage"). It now answers
  with CopyDone, reads the next timeline the server sends, both
  CommandCompletes and ReadyForQuery, and ends the enumeration normally,
  leaving the connection usable. Status updates stop before our
  CopyDone, since the protocol doesn't allow CopyData after it. The next
  timeline is logged, and the StartReplication docs explain how to
  continue: IDENTIFY_SYSTEM returns the current timeline and
  TIMELINE_HISTORY the position where it branched off, which can be
  before the end of the WAL received on the old timeline.
- Asked to start at the end of a historic timeline, the server doesn't
  enter copy mode but sends the next timeline right away, which Npgsql
  treated as an unexpected message. The enumeration now ends right away.
- A walsender that exits after everything has been replicated (e.g. at
  server shutdown, npgsql#5752) sends CommandComplete, which also broke the
  connection with a misleading error. It now throws an NpgsqlException
  saying that the server ended the replication stream.
- In logical replication, unknown CopyData message types are skipped
  instead of breaking the connection, like the logical replication
  worker, which ignores them on purpose. Physical replication keeps
  rejecting them, like walreceiver, since it must not lose WAL.
  Keepalive fields that newer servers may add are skipped in both.
- In physical replication, the received position reported to the server
  was the server's own WAL end, not the end of the WAL received, so
  pg_stat_replication.write_lsn and synchronous_commit = remote_write
  treated WAL as written before it arrived. It is now the end of the
  data the consumer is done with, like walreceiver reports what it
  wrote.
- LastReceivedLsn starts over at the start position of each stream
  instead of keeping the maximum of all previous streams, which was
  wrong when continuing on a new timeline at a lower position.
- The XLogData stream is disposed after each message instead of later in
  cleanup, where it could skip data based on a stale position: a server
  error that ended the stream after a keepalive (e.g. after
  pg_cancel_backend) turned into a timeout and a broken connection.

The new cluster tests stream physically across a standby's promotion
and through a fast shutdown, using the throwaway clusters from
NPGSQL_TEST_PG_BIN.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Breaking out of a replication enumeration, or an exception in the
  consumer, left the inner enumerator undisposed. The connection stayed
  in replication mode with its feedback timers running, and every other
  command failed with NpgsqlOperationInProgressException. The
  enumerators are now disposed, which stops streaming: physical
  replication ends copy mode with CopyDone, which keeps the walsender
  ready for the next START_REPLICATION and keeps temporary slots;
  logical replication cancels the command, since a logical walsender
  can't stream again after CopyDone. Like any error, the cancellation
  drops the temporary slots of the session (documented on the logical
  StartReplication methods). Servers before PostgreSQL 10 ignore
  cancellation requests on replication connections, so with them the
  logical stop breaks the connection instead.
  A final status update reports the processed position first; for
  logical replication this is best effort, since the walsender may
  handle the cancellation before it reads the update. If stopping fails,
  the connection is broken; the exception that made the consumer stop is
  never replaced. On PostgreSQL 14-17, the server may not send
  pgoutput's Relation messages again in the next stream on the same
  connection after such a cancellation (on 14 after any error, on 15-17
  if the connection created the slot with an exported snapshot; fixed in
  PostgreSQL 18 by 80b727eb9de). This is documented on the pgoutput
  StartReplication, and the test avoids it.
- Status updates that were still on their way when a stream ended (e.g.
  from a timer or another thread) could be written after the end of the
  command, interleaved with the next one. They are now dropped.
- Whatever the consumer didn't read of the message it held is skipped
  first, also when a plugin like pgoutput reads the data directly from
  the buffer. Reading beyond the end of a message breaks the connection.
- After cancellation, messages that were already on their way were still
  handed out until the server's error arrived. They are now skipped.
  This makes the physical replication tests reliable, so they run again
  (some of them also used colliding slot names).
- Starting a second stream while one was in progress overwrote the state
  of the first one before failing, so disposing the connection didn't
  stop the first stream anymore. It now fails before touching anything,
  and a start that fails leaves no state behind.
- A message bigger than the read buffer (e.g. a long notice) made the
  connector switch to a bigger buffer while the stream kept reading from
  the old one. This is fixed for the replication stream itself; the
  pgoutput decoder still reads from the old buffer.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
After a backend message bigger than the read buffer (e.g. a notice
longer than 8 KB), the connector reads into a bigger buffer whose array
comes from ArrayPool<byte>.Shared, and a replication stream follows it
there for the rest of the session. When the connector broke while the
consumer held a message (e.g. because a status update failed),
disposing the buffer returned the array to the pool, but the consumer
could still read the message's data from it. If something else rented
the array meanwhile, the consumer silently got that renter's bytes
instead.

The buffer of a broken connector now leaves its array to the GC instead
of returning it to the pool. Closing a connector, resetting a pooled
one and switching to an even bigger buffer still return it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

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