Topic retention settings causes consumer to skip consuming new messages that arrived after deleted messages

[bentcoder]

Description

Hi,

If I write in order, it would probably be clearer so here it is:

1. In the producer app, I set message retention as 10000 ms at topic creation and run it. The consumer app is not running yet.
2. Producer app sends 3 some messages to the topic.
3. I let 5 minutes go by so that the messages are auto removed from the topic. Topic has 0 messages now which is good.
4. I produce 3 messages again. Topic has 3 messages now.
5. I run consumer app straight after but it doesn't see/consume (I can see them UI) those pending messages! WHY?
6. I produce 3 messages again. Topic has 6 messages now.
7. Because consumer is already running, it consumes these 3 new messages!

So technically what's happening here is that, when messages are deleted from topic due to retention settings, consumer will not see new messages that were added after deleted messages. This happens if I run consumer after adding new messages. If I run it in the middle and send messages, it would consume them.

This issue doesn't exists if I don't set those two retention entries at ConfigEntries.

Versions

Sarama	Kafka	Go
v1.43.2	v3.3.2	1.22

Configuration

Producer app

Create topic.

ms := "10000"

err := adm.CreateTopic("any-day", &sarama.TopicDetail{
	NumPartitions:     1,
	ReplicationFactor: 1,
	ConfigEntries: map[string]*string{
		"retention.ms":        &ms,
		"delete.retention.ms": &ms,
	},
}, false)

Send message.

msg := sarama.ProducerMessage{
	Topic:     "any-day",
	Value:     sarama.StringEncoder(data),
	Key:       sarama.StringEncoder(item.ID),
	Timestamp: time.Now().UTC(),
}

part, offs, err := syncProducer.SendMessage(&msg)

Consumer app

type Kafka struct { // ... }

func (k Kafka) CreateConsumerGroup(topic string) error {
	grp, err := sarama.NewConsumerGroup(k.addrs, topic+"-group", k.config)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	go func() {
		for err := range grp.Errors() {
			fmt.Println("ERROR", err)
		}
	}()

	cons := AnyDay{}

	for {
		err := grp.Consume(context.Background(), []string{topic}, cons)
		if err != nil {
			fmt.Printf("error from consumer: %v", err)
		}
	}
}

type AnyDay struct{}

func (AnyDay) Setup(sarama.ConsumerGroupSession) error   { return nil }
func (AnyDay) Cleanup(sarama.ConsumerGroupSession) error { return nil }
func (AnyDay) ConsumeClaim(sess sarama.ConsumerGroupSession, claim sarama.ConsumerGroupClaim) error {
	i := 1
	for msg := range claim.Messages() {
		par := msg.Partition
		off := msg.Offset
		top := msg.Topic
		key := msg.Key

		fmt.Printf("%d: PAR: %d OFF: %d TOP: %s KEY: %s > %s\n", i, par, off, top, key, string(msg.Value))

		sess.MarkMessage(msg, "")

		i++
	}

	return nil
}

[puellanivis]

This sort of looks like what I would expect if you had Config.Offsets.Initial == OffsetNewest. When the consumer joins the topic, it would then be waiting for newer messages, and not from the start. Relevant comments on the field from godoc:

// The initial offset to use if no offset was previously committed.
// Should be OffsetNewest or OffsetOldest. Defaults to OffsetNewest.
Initial int64

[bentcoder]

I actually changed it to OffsetOldest and it has been working fine since but I wasn't sure if this was, in fact, the solution. Hence I wanted to wait for a comment.

[puellanivis]

Great news. :) Good to get feedback that what the thing that first comes to mind was the issue. 👍

[dnwe]

Yep, the described behaviour does match with what you'd expect a consumer to do if it starts as a new group without any committed offset(s) and a config setting of sarama.OffsetNewest

[bentcoder]

Excellent, thank you!