I noticed in the logs before every timeout there were lots of “verify” words appearing, and in each iteration of that statement there were more and more verify words. Honestly had no idea what it meant at the point, only that I didn’t recognise it from looking at lemmy logs previously, it always appeared before a crash, and it felt suspicious.

Here’s an example from some logs before a crash:

2026-03-15T21:47:22.670586Z  INFO HTTP request{http.method=POST http.scheme="https" http.host=lemmy.zip http.target=/inbox otel.kind="server" request_id=2cc6dc65-571d-4a69-9733-5e80e455c00b}:receive:community:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:verify:
verify:verify:verify:verify: activitypub_federation::fetch: 
Fetching remote object https://hexbear.net/comment/7004776

thread 'actix-server worker 18' has overflowed its stack

fatal runtime error: stack overflow

I pinged some logs over to Nutomic on matrix, who thought it might have been related to nested comments, and then I noticed Dessalines had made the linked thread, which matched pretty much with what I was seeing behaviour and logs-wise.

Usefully the logs link the object it’s fetching, and 9 times out of 10 its a deeply nested hexbear thread! Or someone from another instance commenting on a nested hexbear thread. Nutomic confirmed the behaviour based on the logs in the issue, and I’m pulling the logs when I get chance to see what other threads are causing it to crash, although hopefully the fix will make it’s way into 0.19.18 beta 3 so I can stop worrying about it!