thanos-io/thanos · error

--auto-gomemlimit.ratio must be greater than 0 and less…

Error message

--auto-gomemlimit.ratio must be greater than 0 and less than or equal to 1.

What it means

configureGoAutoMemLimit validates the --auto-gomemlimit.ratio flag before calling memlimit.SetGoMemLimitWithOpts. The ratio must be in the interval (0, 1]; values <= 0 or > 1 are rejected with this explicit error and GOMEMLIMIT is not configured (limits stays -1).

Solutions

1. Set the ratio within (0, 1], e.g. --auto-gomemlimit.ratio=0.9.
2. To express a percentage, convert: 90% -> 0.9.
3. If you want the feature off, don't set the ratio; disable via the enable flag instead of an out-of-range value.

Example fix

// before
thanos query --auto-gomemlimit.ratio=1.5
// after
thanos query --auto-gomemlimit.ratio=0.9

func memlimitRatioValid(r float64) bool { return r > 0.0 && r <= 1.0 }

// Go
limits, err := configureGoAutoMemLimit(common)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "auto-gomemlimit.ratio") {
    return fmt.Errorf("flag config: %w", err) // do not retry; fix the flag
}

When it happens

Trigger: Starting any Thanos command with --auto-gomemlimit.ratio=0, a negative value like =-0.5, or =1.5.

Common situations: Misreading the flag semantics (thinking 0 disables it or that >1 means "allow more than available"); copy-paste mistakes in unit files or Helm values; type confusion passing a percentage like 90 instead of 0.9.

Understand the failure class

Background: "value must be between 0 and 1" / "out of range" / "must not be negative" errors: fixing range-validation failures across open-source libraries — this error's family across 42 libraries.

Related errors

• unsupported format for label
• error validating the config
• Address is duplicated for --query flag.
• level is bigger then default set of
• unknown sync strategy

AI-assisted analysis of thanos-io/thanos@35b8b99117 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/84681f9f6b70415a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at cmd/thanos/config.go:371

	cmd.Flag("enable-auto-gomemlimit",
		"Enable go runtime to automatically limit memory consumption.").
		Default("false").BoolVar(&gml.enableAutoGoMemlimit)

	cmd.Flag("auto-gomemlimit.ratio",
		"The ratio of reserved GOMEMLIMIT memory to the detected maximum container or system memory.").
		Default("0.9").FloatVar(&gml.memlimitRatio)

	return gml
}

func configureGoAutoMemLimit(common goMemLimitConfig) (int64, error) {
	var (
		err    error
		limits int64 = -1
	)

	if common.memlimitRatio <= 0.0 || common.memlimitRatio > 1.0 {
		return limits, errors.New("--auto-gomemlimit.ratio must be greater than 0 and less than or equal to 1.")
	}

	if common.enableAutoGoMemlimit {
		limits, err = memlimit.SetGoMemLimitWithOpts(
			memlimit.WithRatio(common.memlimitRatio),
			memlimit.WithProvider(
				memlimit.ApplyFallback(
					memlimit.FromCgroup,
					memlimit.FromSystem,
				),
			),
		)
		if err != nil {
			return -1, errors.Wrap(err, "Failed to set GOMEMLIMIT automatically")
		}
	}

	return limits, nil

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