Signal bails out immediately, 'database or disk is full' & 'cannot rollback - no transaction is active'

[fedorovian]

Guidelines

• I have searched searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

Bug description

I’m running into an error with Signal Android crashing on startup, with: ErrorCode 13: database or disk is full:

SQLiteLog: (13) statement aborts at 5: [INSERT INTO message_fts (message_fts, rank) values ('merge', -64)] database or disk is full
SQLiteLog: (1) statement aborts at 1: [ROLLBACK;] cannot rollback - no transaction is active
sqlcipher: ERROR MEMORY sqlcipher_mlock: mlock() returned -1 errno=12

This began suddenly, not directly following an update of the app or the OS. Other instances of Signal in separate user profiles of this same phone are unaffected.

When I start the OS, I get toast notifications of unread Signal messages from a few hours previously (but no new ones are delivered since the error began). I can open Signal enough to unlock it with my phone code, but at best it gets to displaying my conversation list and subsequently crashes with the above error message. (Or often bails out before being able to unlock it.)

In searching for other reported instances, I found this forum thread, in which the suggestion was to clear app cache and restart:

https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-feedback-for-the-upcoming-android-5-26-release/38629/80

I’ve done this multiple times now and to no effect.

There is indeed space enough on my system. My Signal DB is roughly 18GB, while free space at the time of error was over 15GB. I did not have local backups enabled, so it was not attempting to use a great deal more space. I’ve since cleared out more space (61GB free), to no effect.

In searching Github issues, I found this, which also desribes my situation, with multiple users reporting the same:

#13435

It was closed by the auto bot and I cannot re-open it. Appreciate in advance any help in patching this issue.

Screenshots

No response

Device

Google Pixel 6a

Android version

GrapheneOS (Android 16)

Signal version

v7.58.2, v7.59.2, v7.60.1, v7.61.0

Link to debug log

Signal won't produce debug logs, even on lock screen. Instead, it crashes before producing them.

Here are Android logcat logs, containing two such crashes:

https://gist.github.com/fedorovian/1cc9521f57a56bd0df4ed6d1e12a995d#file-signal-crash-log-L929-L934

[fedorovian]

I've freed up yet more space, and disabled GrapheneOS's hardened memory allocator for Signal, but no change. Conversations also no longer show such that I can't delete any of them before the OptimizeMessageSearchIndexJob runs and crashes.

I've e-mailed Signal support regarding this, though yet to hear back.

I don't think I'll be able to forego access to mobile Signal for much longer, which would mean not only the loss of the local DB, but unfortunately for Signal the loss of the ability to debug and remediate this instance for anyone else who comes to be affected by it.

If you could please indicate whether you're willing to investigate this with me, I can hold off on a reinstall for a bit longer. Thanks.

[cody-signal]

I'll look into this and let you know.