---
stage: Enablement
group: Distribution
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
---

# Troubleshooting Sidekiq **(FREE SELF)**

Sidekiq is the background job processor GitLab uses to asynchronously run
tasks. When things go wrong it can be difficult to troubleshoot. These
situations also tend to be high-pressure because a production system job queue
may be filling up. Users will notice when this happens because new branches
may not show up and merge requests may not be updated. The following are some
troubleshooting steps to help you diagnose the bottleneck.

GitLab administrators/users should consider working through these
debug steps with GitLab Support so the backtraces can be analyzed by our team.
It may reveal a bug or necessary improvement in GitLab.

In any of the backtraces, be wary of suspecting cases where every
thread appears to be waiting in the database, Redis, or waiting to acquire
a mutex. This **may** mean there's contention in the database, for example,
but look for one thread that is different than the rest. This other thread
may be using all available CPU, or have a Ruby Global Interpreter Lock,
preventing other threads from continuing.

## Log arguments to Sidekiq jobs

[In GitLab 13.6 and later](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/44853)
some arguments passed to Sidekiq jobs are logged by default.
To avoid logging sensitive information (for instance, password reset tokens),
GitLab logs numeric arguments for all workers, with overrides for some specific
workers where their arguments are not sensitive.

Example log output:

```json
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.892Z","class":"AdminEmailsWorker","args":["[FILTERED]","[FILTERED]","[FILTERED]"],"retry":3,"queue":"admin_emails","backtrace":true,"jid":"9e35e2674ac7b12d123e13cc","created_at":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.373Z","meta.user":"root","meta.caller_id":"Admin::EmailsController#create","correlation_id":"37D3lArJmT1","uber-trace-id":"2d942cc98cc1b561:6dc94409cfdd4d77:9fbe19bdee865293:1","enqueued_at":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.410Z","pid":65011,"message":"AdminEmailsWorker JID-9e35e2674ac7b12d123e13cc: done: 0.48085 sec","job_status":"done","scheduling_latency_s":0.001012,"redis_calls":9,"redis_duration_s":0.004608,"redis_read_bytes":696,"redis_write_bytes":6141,"duration_s":0.48085,"cpu_s":0.308849,"completed_at":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.892Z","db_duration_s":0.010742}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.894Z","class":"ActiveJob::QueueAdapters::SidekiqAdapter::JobWrapper","wrapped":"ActionMailer::MailDeliveryJob","queue":"mailers","args":["[FILTERED]"],"retry":3,"backtrace":true,"jid":"e47a4f6793d475378432e3c8","created_at":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.884Z","meta.user":"root","meta.caller_id":"AdminEmailsWorker","correlation_id":"37D3lArJmT1","uber-trace-id":"2d942cc98cc1b561:29344de0f966446d:5c3b0e0e1bef987b:1","enqueued_at":"2020-06-08T14:37:37.885Z","pid":65011,"message":"ActiveJob::QueueAdapters::SidekiqAdapter::JobWrapper JID-e47a4f6793d475378432e3c8: start","job_status":"start","scheduling_latency_s":0.009473}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-06-08T14:39:50.648Z","class":"NewIssueWorker","args":["455","1"],"retry":3,"queue":"new_issue","backtrace":true,"jid":"a24af71f96fd129ec47f5d1e","created_at":"2020-06-08T14:39:50.643Z","meta.user":"root","meta.project":"h5bp/html5-boilerplate","meta.root_namespace":"h5bp","meta.caller_id":"Projects::IssuesController#create","correlation_id":"f9UCZHqhuP7","uber-trace-id":"28f65730f99f55a3:a5d2b62dec38dffc:48ddd092707fa1b7:1","enqueued_at":"2020-06-08T14:39:50.646Z","pid":65011,"message":"NewIssueWorker JID-a24af71f96fd129ec47f5d1e: start","job_status":"start","scheduling_latency_s":0.001144}
```

When using [Sidekiq JSON logging](../logs.md#sidekiqlog),
arguments logs are limited to a maximum size of 10 kilobytes of text;
any arguments after this limit are discarded and replaced with a
single argument containing the string `"..."`.

You can set `SIDEKIQ_LOG_ARGUMENTS` [environment variable](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/environment-variables.html)
to `0` (false) to disable argument logging.

Example:

```ruby
gitlab_rails['env'] = {"SIDEKIQ_LOG_ARGUMENTS" => "0"}
```

In GitLab 13.5 and earlier, set `SIDEKIQ_LOG_ARGUMENTS` to `1` to start logging arguments passed to Sidekiq.

## Thread dump

Send the Sidekiq process ID the `TTIN` signal to output thread
backtraces in the log file.

```shell
kill -TTIN <sidekiq_pid>
```

Check in `/var/log/gitlab/sidekiq/current` or `$GITLAB_HOME/log/sidekiq.log` for
the backtrace output. The backtraces are lengthy and generally start with
several `WARN` level messages. Here's an example of a single thread's backtrace:

```plaintext
2016-04-13T06:21:20.022Z 31517 TID-orn4urby0 WARN: ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound: Couldn't find Note with 'id'=3375386
2016-04-13T06:21:20.022Z 31517 TID-orn4urby0 WARN: /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5.2/lib/active_record/core.rb:155:in `find'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/app/workers/new_note_worker.rb:7:in `perform'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/sidekiq-4.0.1/lib/sidekiq/processor.rb:150:in `execute_job'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/sidekiq-4.0.1/lib/sidekiq/processor.rb:132:in `block (2 levels) in process'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/sidekiq-4.0.1/lib/sidekiq/middleware/chain.rb:127:in `block in invoke'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/lib/gitlab/sidekiq_middleware/memory_killer.rb:17:in `call'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/sidekiq-4.0.1/lib/sidekiq/middleware/chain.rb:129:in `block in invoke'
/opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/lib/gitlab/sidekiq_middleware/arguments_logger.rb:6:in `call'
...
```

In some cases Sidekiq may be hung and unable to respond to the `TTIN` signal.
Move on to other troubleshooting methods if this happens.

## Ruby profiling with `rbspy`

[rbspy](https://rbspy.github.io) is an easy to use and low-overhead Ruby profiler that can be used to create
flamegraph-style diagrams of CPU usage by Ruby processes.

No changes to GitLab are required to use it and it has no dependencies. To install it:

1. Download the binary from the [`rbspy` releases page](https://github.com/rbspy/rbspy/releases).
1. Make the binary executable.

To profile a Sidekiq worker for one minute, run:

```shell
sudo ./rbspy record --pid <sidekiq_pid> --duration 60 --file /tmp/sidekiq_profile.svg
```

![Example rbspy flamegraph](img/sidekiq_flamegraph.png)

In this example of a flamegraph generated by `rbspy`, almost all of the Sidekiq process's time is spent in `rev_parse`, a native C
function in Rugged. In the stack, we can see `rev_parse` is being called by the `ExpirePipelineCacheWorker`.

## Process profiling with `perf`

Linux has a process profiling tool called `perf` that is helpful when a certain
process is eating up a lot of CPU. If you see high CPU usage and Sidekiq isn't
responding to the `TTIN` signal, this is a good next step.

If `perf` is not installed on your system, install it with `apt-get` or `yum`:

```shell
# Debian
sudo apt-get install linux-tools

# Ubuntu (may require these additional Kernel packages)
sudo apt-get install linux-tools-common linux-tools-generic linux-tools-`uname -r`

# Red Hat/CentOS
sudo yum install perf
```

Run `perf` against the Sidekiq PID:

```shell
sudo perf record -p <sidekiq_pid>
```

Let this run for 30-60 seconds and then press Ctrl-C. Then view the `perf` report:

```shell
$ sudo perf report

# Sample output
Samples: 348K of event 'cycles', Event count (approx.): 280908431073
 97.69%            ruby  nokogiri.so         [.] xmlXPathNodeSetMergeAndClear
  0.18%            ruby  libruby.so.2.1.0    [.] objspace_malloc_increase
  0.12%            ruby  libc-2.12.so        [.] _int_malloc
  0.10%            ruby  libc-2.12.so        [.] _int_free
```

Above you see sample output from a `perf` report. It shows that 97% of the CPU is
being spent inside Nokogiri and `xmlXPathNodeSetMergeAndClear`. For something
this obvious you should then go investigate what job in GitLab would use
Nokogiri and XPath. Combine with `TTIN` or `gdb` output to show the
corresponding Ruby code where this is happening.

## The GNU Project Debugger (`gdb`)

`gdb` can be another effective tool for debugging Sidekiq. It gives you a little
more interactive way to look at each thread and see what's causing problems.

Attaching to a process with `gdb` suspends the normal operation
of the process (Sidekiq does not process jobs while `gdb` is attached).

Start by attaching to the Sidekiq PID:

```shell
gdb -p <sidekiq_pid>
```

Then gather information on all the threads:

```plaintext
info threads

# Example output
30 Thread 0x7fe5fbd63700 (LWP 26060) 0x0000003f7cadf113 in poll () from /lib64/libc.so.6
29 Thread 0x7fe5f2b3b700 (LWP 26533) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
28 Thread 0x7fe5f2a3a700 (LWP 26534) 0x0000003f7ce0ba5e in pthread_cond_timedwait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
27 Thread 0x7fe5f2939700 (LWP 26535) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
26 Thread 0x7fe5f2838700 (LWP 26537) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
25 Thread 0x7fe5f2737700 (LWP 26538) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
24 Thread 0x7fe5f2535700 (LWP 26540) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
23 Thread 0x7fe5f2434700 (LWP 26541) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
22 Thread 0x7fe5f2232700 (LWP 26543) 0x0000003f7ce0b68c in pthread_cond_wait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
21 Thread 0x7fe5f2131700 (LWP 26544) 0x00007fe5f7b570f0 in xmlXPathNodeSetMergeAndClear ()
from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
...
```

If you see a suspicious thread, like the Nokogiri one above, you may want
to get more information:

```plaintext
thread 21
bt

# Example output
#0  0x00007ff0d6afe111 in xmlXPathNodeSetMergeAndClear () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#1  0x00007ff0d6b0b836 in xmlXPathNodeCollectAndTest () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#2  0x00007ff0d6b09037 in xmlXPathCompOpEval () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#3  0x00007ff0d6b09017 in xmlXPathCompOpEval () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#4  0x00007ff0d6b092e0 in xmlXPathCompOpEval () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#5  0x00007ff0d6b0bc37 in xmlXPathRunEval () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#6  0x00007ff0d6b0be5f in xmlXPathEvalExpression () from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gem/ruby/2.1.0/gems/nokogiri-1.6.7.2/lib/nokogiri/nokogiri.so
#7  0x00007ff0d6a97dc3 in evaluate (argc=2, argv=0x1022d058, self=<value optimized out>) at xml_xpath_context.c:221
#8  0x00007ff0daeab0ea in vm_call_cfunc_with_frame (th=0x1022a4f0, reg_cfp=0x1032b810, ci=<value optimized out>) at vm_insnhelper.c:1510
```

To output a backtrace from all threads at once:

```plaintext
set pagination off
thread apply all bt
```

Once you're done debugging with `gdb`, be sure to detach from the process and
exit:

```plaintext
detach
exit
```

## Sidekiq kill signals

TTIN was described above as the signal to print backtraces for logging, however
Sidekiq responds to other signals as well. For example, TSTP and TERM can be used
to gracefully shut Sidekiq down, see
[the Sidekiq Signals docs](https://github.com/mperham/sidekiq/wiki/Signals#ttin).

## Check for blocking queries

Sometimes the speed at which Sidekiq processes jobs can be so fast that it can
cause database contention. Check for blocking queries when backtraces above
show that many threads are stuck in the database adapter.

The PostgreSQL wiki has details on the query you can run to see blocking
queries. The query is different based on PostgreSQL version. See
[Lock Monitoring](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Lock_Monitoring) for
the query details.

## Managing Sidekiq queues

It is possible to use [Sidekiq API](https://github.com/mperham/sidekiq/wiki/API)
to perform a number of troubleshooting steps on Sidekiq.

These are the administrative commands and it should only be used if currently
administration interface is not suitable due to scale of installation.

All these commands should be run using `gitlab-rails console`.

### View the queue size

```ruby
Sidekiq::Queue.new("pipeline_processing:build_queue").size
```

### Enumerate all enqueued jobs

```ruby
queue = Sidekiq::Queue.new("chaos:chaos_sleep")
queue.each do |job|
  # job.klass # => 'MyWorker'
  # job.args # => [1, 2, 3]
  # job.jid # => jid
  # job.queue # => chaos:chaos_sleep
  # job["retry"] # => 3
  # job.item # => {
  #   "class"=>"Chaos::SleepWorker",
  #   "args"=>[1000],
  #   "retry"=>3,
  #   "queue"=>"chaos:chaos_sleep",
  #   "backtrace"=>true,
  #   "queue_namespace"=>"chaos",
  #   "jid"=>"39bc482b823cceaf07213523",
  #   "created_at"=>1566317076.266069,
  #   "correlation_id"=>"c323b832-a857-4858-b695-672de6f0e1af",
  #   "enqueued_at"=>1566317076.26761},
  # }

  # job.delete if job.jid == 'abcdef1234567890'
end
```

### Enumerate currently running jobs

```ruby
workers = Sidekiq::Workers.new
workers.each do |process_id, thread_id, work|
  # process_id is a unique identifier per Sidekiq process
  # thread_id is a unique identifier per thread
  # work is a Hash which looks like:
  # {"queue"=>"chaos:chaos_sleep",
  #  "payload"=>
  #  { "class"=>"Chaos::SleepWorker",
  #    "args"=>[1000],
  #    "retry"=>3,
  #    "queue"=>"chaos:chaos_sleep",
  #    "backtrace"=>true,
  #    "queue_namespace"=>"chaos",
  #    "jid"=>"b2a31e3eac7b1a99ff235869",
  #    "created_at"=>1566316974.9215662,
  #    "correlation_id"=>"e484fb26-7576-45f9-bf21-b99389e1c53c",
  #    "enqueued_at"=>1566316974.9229589},
  #  "run_at"=>1566316974}],
end
```

### Remove Sidekiq jobs for given parameters (destructive)

The general method to kill jobs conditionally is the following command, which
removes jobs that are queued but not started. Running jobs can not be killed.

```ruby
queue = Sidekiq::Queue.new('<queue name>')
queue.each { |job| job.delete if <condition>}
```

Have a look at the section below for cancelling running jobs.

In the method above, `<queue-name>` is the name of the queue that contains the jobs you want to delete and `<condition>` decides which jobs get deleted.

Commonly, `<condition>` references the job arguments, which depend on the type of job in question. To find the arguments for a specific queue, you can have a look at the `perform` function of the related worker file, commonly found at `/app/workers/<queue-name>_worker.rb`.

For example, `repository_import` has `project_id` as the job argument, while `update_merge_requests` has `project_id, user_id, oldrev, newrev, ref`.

Arguments need to be referenced by their sequence ID using `job.args[<id>]` because `job.args` is a list of all arguments provided to the Sidekiq job.

Here are some examples:

```ruby
queue = Sidekiq::Queue.new('update_merge_requests')
# In this example, we want to remove any update_merge_requests jobs
# for the Project with ID 125 and ref `ref/heads/my_branch`
queue.each { |job| job.delete if job.args[0] == 125 and job.args[4] == 'ref/heads/my_branch' }
```

```ruby
# Cancelling jobs like: `RepositoryImportWorker.new.perform_async(100)`
id_list = [100]

queue = Sidekiq::Queue.new('repository_import')
queue.each do |job|
  job.delete if id_list.include?(job.args[0])
end
```

### Remove specific job ID (destructive)

```ruby
queue = Sidekiq::Queue.new('repository_import')
queue.each do |job|
  job.delete if job.jid == 'my-job-id'
end
```

## Canceling running jobs (destructive)

> Introduced in GitLab 12.3.

This is highly risky operation and use it as last resort.
Doing that might result in data corruption, as the job
is interrupted mid-execution and it is not guaranteed
that proper rollback of transactions is implemented.

```ruby
Gitlab::SidekiqDaemon::Monitor.cancel_job('job-id')
```

> This requires the Sidekiq to be run with `SIDEKIQ_MONITOR_WORKER=1`
> environment variable.

To perform of the interrupt we use `Thread.raise` which
has number of drawbacks, as mentioned in [Why Ruby's Timeout is dangerous (and Thread.raise is terrifying)](https://jvns.ca/blog/2015/11/27/why-rubys-timeout-is-dangerous-and-thread-dot-raise-is-terrifying/):

> This is where the implications get interesting, and terrifying. This means that an exception can get raised:
>
> - during a network request (ok, as long as the surrounding code is prepared to catch Timeout::Error)
> - during the cleanup for the network request
> - during a rescue block
> - while creating an object to save to the database afterwards
> - in any of your code, regardless of whether it could have possibly raised an exception before
>
> Nobody writes code to defend against an exception being raised on literally any line. That's not even possible. So Thread.raise is basically like a sneak attack on your code that could result in almost anything. It would probably be okay if it were pure-functional code that did not modify any state. But this is Ruby, so that's unlikely :)

## Disable Rugged

Calls into Rugged, Ruby bindings for `libgit2`, [lock the Sidekiq processes's GVL](https://silverhammermba.github.io/emberb/c/#c-in-ruby-threads),
blocking all jobs on that worker from proceeding. If Rugged calls performed by Sidekiq are slow, this can cause significant delays in
background task processing.

By default, Rugged is used when Git repository data is stored on local storage or on an NFS mount.
[Using Rugged is recommended when using NFS](../nfs.md#improving-nfs-performance-with-gitlab), but if
you are using local storage, disabling Rugged can improve Sidekiq performance:

```shell
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:features:disable_rugged
```
