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Asynchronous tasks ID sequence can exhaust

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
django, postgresql, python
Domain
backend, databases

Research direction

Start by locating the Task model and checking its primary-key references and migrations; the issue does not name specific files or tests. Verify what depends on numeric task IDs before changing the key. Done means Task.uuid is the UUID4 primary key, the sequence is removed, and no logic depends on numeric task IDs.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

In some Flagsmith installs with a lot of dashboard activity and analytics turned on, the Task.id field can yield a sequence exhaustion error in Postgres:

django.db.utils.DataError: nextval: reached maximum value of sequence "task_processor_task_id_seq" (2147483647)

Although https://github.com/Flagsmith/flagsmith/pull/5358 has alleviated the accumulation of items by preventing /api/v1/flags/ from enqueuing new tasks for analytics tracking, we're bound to hit that limit eventually.

Seemingly, this only affects instances with analytics enabled. As such, a temporary fix includes:

  1. Upgrading Flagsmith to a version equal or newer than v2.173.1. This alone should postpone the exhaustion by many years in most installs.
  2. Shifting the sequence axis so it consumes negative numbers, i.e.:
ALTER SEQUENCE task_processor_task_id_seq MINVALUE -2147483648 RESTART WITH -2147483648;

Acceptance criteria

  • Promote Task.uuid to a primary key defaulting to UUID4(), dismissing a sequence entirely. Must ensure no logic depends on numeric task IDs.
Dominant language
Python
Stars
2
Forks
4
Avg merge
1h 7m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

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