/cloudflare-deploy

DO Storage Gotchas & Troubleshooting

Concurrency Model (CRITICAL)

Durable Objects use input/output gates to prevent race conditions:

Input Gates

Block new requests during storage reads from CURRENT request:

// SAFE: Input gate active during await
async increment() {
  const val = await this.ctx.storage.get("counter"); // Input gate blocks other requests
  await this.ctx.storage.put("counter", val + 1);
  return val;
}

Output Gates

Hold response until ALL writes from current request confirm:

// SAFE: Output gate waits for put() to confirm before returning response
async increment() {
  const val = await this.ctx.storage.get("counter");
  this.ctx.storage.put("counter", val + 1); // No await
  return new Response(String(val)); // Response delayed until write confirms
}

Write Coalescing

Multiple writes to same key = atomic (last write wins):

// SAFE: All three writes coalesce atomically
this.ctx.storage.put("key", 1);
this.ctx.storage.put("key", 2);
this.ctx.storage.put("key", 3); // Final value: 3

Breaking Gates (DANGER)

fetch() breaks input/output gates → allows request interleaving:

// UNSAFE: fetch() allows another request to interleave
async unsafe() {
  const val = await this.ctx.storage.get("counter");
  await fetch("https://api.example.com"); // Gate broken!
  await this.ctx.storage.put("counter", val + 1); // Race condition possible
}

Solution: Use blockConcurrencyWhile() or transaction():

// SAFE: Block concurrent requests explicitly
async safe() {
  return await this.ctx.blockConcurrencyWhile(async () => {
    const val = await this.ctx.storage.get("counter");
    await fetch("https://api.example.com");
    await this.ctx.storage.put("counter", val + 1);
    return val;
  });
}

allowConcurrency Option

Opt out of input gate for reads that don't need protection:

// Allow concurrent reads (no consistency guarantee)
const val = await this.ctx.storage.get("metrics", { allowConcurrency: true });

Common Errors

"Race Condition in Concurrent Calls"

Cause: Multiple concurrent storage operations initiated from same event (e.g., Promise.all()) are not protected by input gate
Solution: Avoid concurrent storage operations within single event; input gate only serializes requests from different events, not operations within same event

"Direct SQL Transaction Statements"

Cause: Using BEGIN TRANSACTION directly instead of transaction methods
Solution: Use this.ctx.storage.transactionSync() for sync operations or this.ctx.storage.transaction() for async operations

"Async in transactionSync"

Cause: Using async operations inside transactionSync() callback
Solution: Use async transaction() method instead of transactionSync() when async operations needed

"TypeScript Type Mismatch at Runtime"

Cause: Query doesn't return all fields specified in TypeScript type
Solution: Ensure SQL query selects all columns that match the TypeScript type definition

"Silent Data Corruption with Large IDs"

Cause: JavaScript numbers have 53-bit precision; SQLite INTEGER is 64-bit
Symptom: IDs > 9007199254740991 (Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER) silently truncate/corrupt
Solution: Store large IDs as TEXT:

// BAD: Snowflake/Twitter IDs will corrupt
this.sql.exec("CREATE TABLE events(id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY)");
this.sql.exec("INSERT INTO events VALUES (?)", 1234567890123456789n); // Corrupts!

// GOOD: Store as TEXT
this.sql.exec("CREATE TABLE events(id TEXT PRIMARY KEY)");
this.sql.exec("INSERT INTO events VALUES (?)", "1234567890123456789");

"Alarm Not Deleted with deleteAll()"

Cause: deleteAll() doesn't delete alarms automatically
Solution: Call deleteAlarm() explicitly before deleteAll() to remove alarm

"Slow Performance"

Cause: Using async KV API instead of sync API
Solution: Use sync KV API (ctx.storage.kv) for better performance with simple key-value operations

"High Billing from Storage Operations"

Cause: Excessive rowsRead/rowsWritten or unused objects not cleaned up
Solution: Monitor rowsRead/rowsWritten metrics and ensure unused objects call deleteAll()

"Durable Object Overloaded"

Cause: Single DO exceeding ~1K req/sec soft limit
Solution: Shard across multiple DOs with random IDs or other distribution strategy

Limits