[BUG] Concurrent memory searches fail with deadlock

[Mayoengin]

📋 Prerequisites

• I have searched the existing issues to avoid creating a duplicate
• By submitting this issue, you agree to follow our Code of Conduct
• I am using the latest version of the software
• I have tried to clear cache/cookies or used incognito mode (if ui-related)
• I can consistently reproduce this issue

🎯 Affected Service(s)

Controller Service

🚦 Impact/Severity

Blocker

🐛 Bug Description

Agents with spec.memory configured intermittently fail memory search with HTTP 500, and turns are slow. The controller returns:

500 search failed: failed to increment access count: ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)

The root cause is a non-deterministic row-lock order in IncrementMemoryAccessCount, triggered whenever multiple memory searches run concurrently over an overlapping set of rows — which PrefetchMemoryTool does on every first turn (one search per sentence). When the deadlock hits, the search returns 500 and the agent loses memory recall for that turn.

🔄 Steps To Reproduce

1. Create an Agent with spec.memory set (an embedding ModelConfig) and store a handful of memories for it.
2. Send a multi-sentence first message so PrefetchMemoryTool fans out several concurrent search_memory calls over the same top rows.
3. Have this happen under any concurrency (e.g. a multi-sentence prompt, or two turns at once) so two searches return overlapping rows.
4. Observe SQLSTATE 40P01 (deadlock detected) in the controller logs and HTTP 500 on /api/memories/search; the client retries with backoff and often ends with "No memories found".

🤔 Expected Behavior

Concurrent memory searches update access_count without deadlocking. Memory search always returns its results (a best-effort access-count bookkeeping failure should never fail the search itself).

📱 Actual Behavior

Concurrent searches deadlock in Postgres. Root cause:

SearchAgentMemory runs, per search, as its own autocommit transaction:

UPDATE memory SET access_count = access_count + 1 WHERE id = ANY($1::text[]);

Postgres acquires the row locks in scan order, which can differ between two concurrent statements over an overlapping id set → circular wait → SQLSTATE 40P01. One statement is killed; the search returns 500. Controller log (repeats, with client backoff 1.16→2.16→3.17→4.2→5.2s):

{"level":"info","logger":"http-helpers","msg":"Responding with error","statusCode":500,"message":"search failed: failed to increment access count: ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)"}

Compounding factors:

• PrefetchMemoryTool searches memory once per sentence in parallel, which manufactures the concurrent overlapping searches.
• The task store re-POSTs the same task_id on every streaming event, amplifying write contention on the same Postgres.

💻 Environment

• OS and version: N/A (server-side controller + Python runtime, Linux containers)
• Kubernetes version: 1.34 (AWS EKS)
• Kubernetes provider: AWS EKS
• Browser (if applicable): N/A
• Application version: kagent controller from current main (reproduced on our v1.5.0 build; the code path is unchanged on main)
• Database: external Postgres (reproducible on any Postgres provider — the deadlock is in the SQL, not the provider)

🔧 CLI Bug Report

N/A — this is a server-side controller/agent-runtime bug, not a CLI issue, so kagent bug-report does not apply.

🔍 Additional Context

• Did it work before? The affected code was introduced with the memory store in feat: memory store and agent long-term memory #1266.
• Affected code:
  • go/core/internal/database/queries/memory.sql — IncrementMemoryAccessCount
  • go/core/internal/database/client_postgres.go — SearchAgentMemory (treats the increment error as fatal)
  • python/packages/kagent-adk/src/kagent/adk/tools/prefetch_memory_tool.py — per-sentence fan-out
• Proposed fix (PR to follow): deterministic lock order via UPDATE ... WHERE id IN (SELECT id ... ORDER BY id FOR UPDATE); make the access-count increment non-fatal; debounce identical task-store saves; dedupe + bound the prefetch fan-out.
• Related (not duplicates): feat: memory store and agent long-term memory #1266 (introduced memory store), Memory not persisting across sessions in trusted-proxy auth mode #1771 (memory persistence in trusted-proxy), [BUG] Asking broad questions result in prompt too long. #1877 (prompt too long on broad questions — possibly aggravated by prefetch).

📋 Logs

Controller (repeats rapidly during a burst of concurrent memory searches):

{"level":"info","ts":"2026-06-30T13:54:56Z","logger":"http-helpers","msg":"Responding with error","statusCode":500,"message":"search failed: failed to increment access count: ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)"}
{"level":"info","ts":"2026-06-30T13:54:57Z","logger":"http-helpers","msg":"Responding with error","statusCode":500,"message":"search failed: failed to increment access count: ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)"}
... (12 in ~12s in our capture)

Agent-runtime side (client retries with linear backoff, then gives up):
  retry in 1.16s → 2.16s → 3.17s → 4.20s → 5.20s
  WARNING  No memories found

📷 Screenshots

No response

🙋 Are you willing to contribute?

• I am willing to submit a PR to fix this issue