go context_error ai_generated true

context canceled

ID: go/context-canceled

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
85%Fix Rate
88%Confidence
50Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
1 active

Root Cause

A context was explicitly canceled via CancelFunc before the operation completed. This is often caused by premature cancellation in request handlers or parent context cancellation propagating to child operations.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 90% success Use a detached context for background operations that must outlive the request
    Use context.WithoutCancel(ctx) (Go 1.21+) or context.Background() for operations that should not be canceled when the parent request ends.

    Sources: https://pkg.go.dev/context#WithoutCancel

  2. 85% success Check ctx.Err() before starting expensive operations to fail fast
    if ctx.Err() != nil { return ctx.Err() }

    Sources: https://pkg.go.dev/context#Context

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Ignore the context cancellation and retry immediately 80% fail

    If the parent context is canceled, all child contexts are also canceled — retrying with the same context will fail instantly

  2. Remove cancel() defer calls to prevent cancellation 75% fail

    Skipping cancel() causes resource leaks — the goroutine and its resources are never freed

Error Chain

Leads to:
Preceded by:
Frequently confused with: