# Error saving alert annotation batch **URL:** \ **Category:** Grafana\ **Tags:** alerting\ **Created:** [May 4, 2026, 3:32pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761 "2026-05-04T15:32:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 3:32pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/1 "2026-05-04T15:32:20Z")
Grafana version : Grafana v13.0.1 (a100054f) Noticed this error of late. \<30\>1 2026-05-04T10:59:40.20063-04:00 raspberry05 grafana 247674 - - logger=ngalert.state.historian backend=annotations rule\_uid=cf50q8nv3ooaoe org\_id=1 t=2026-05-04T10:59:40.200174121-04:00 level=error msg=“Failed to save history batch” samples=6 err=“error saving alert annotation batch: SQL logic error: too many SQL variables (1)” Is there something I can do to eliminate this from happening? ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2026, 3:50pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/2 "2026-05-04T15:50:57Z")
Just going back three hours I see it has happen 10 times. ---
**Author:** ![infofcc3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/user_avatar/community.grafana.com/infofcc3/32/51248_2.png) [@infofcc3](https://community.grafana.com/u/infofcc3)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 7:12am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/3 "2026-05-05T07:12:58Z")
hellow @scootertramp what is your evaluation interval , increased it. Reduce labels in alerts or Move Grafana DB to: Postgresql if needed ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/4 "2026-05-05T12:28:42Z")
Evaluation was 30 seconds with a pending period of 30 seconds. I changed it to 10 seconds with a pending period of 20 seconds. What would moving to Postgres solve? The current Grafana db is rather small at 260M. The update frequency isn’t all that high since this is a Home Lab monitoring set-up. ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2026, 1:38pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/5 "2026-05-05T13:38:59Z")
Here are six messages that meet the alert settings. These are pretty consistent as they happen every hour. Also attached is my alert definition [Rsyslog.json](https://community.grafana.com/uploads/short-url/uKkhLE8UPuQVh0QwuTe6ClEjQkg.json) (1.2 KB) . warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.961732-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3240”] replay\_ctr: warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.961732-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3241”] 0000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 4b warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.955346-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3238”] kek: warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.955346-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3239”] 0000: 3e b4 44 6b 2f 04 0a 09 c9 8a f5 b7 50 aa 34 e8 warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.954313-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3236”] kck: warn \<4\>1 2026-05-05T08:58:51.954313-04:00 xt8-down kernel - - [meta sequenceId=“3237”] 0000: a0 a5 1b 2d 55 5c 00 15 ee dd 8e 6a de 94 ef c7 ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2026, 12:00pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/6 "2026-05-06T12:00:02Z")
Changing interval had no effect. I tried ungrouping alert emails since the samples size seemed to match the number of warning alerts. Did not resolve error. ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 6:48pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/7 "2026-05-07T18:48:40Z")
Just more background information. It appears this started on May 2nd. Grafana was last upgraded on Apr 18th. dpkg.log.1:2026-04-18 06:48:19 status unpacked grafana:arm64 13.0.1 dpkg.log.1:2026-04-18 06:48:19 status half-configured grafana:arm64 13.0.1 dpkg.log.1:2026-04-18 06:48:20 status installed grafana:arm64 13.0.1 ![Screenshot 2026-05-07 142857](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/original/3X/3/d/3de1450e7acd60e197c6f70fb621de76ff452c1e.png) ![Screenshot 2026-05-07 142942](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/original/3X/d/d/dd36d24c139716014b58dffb0148e4eed65efd4a.png) ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/8 "2026-05-13T17:00:47Z")
Since i am using the default Grafana Contact point with the Grafana default Notification Policy and Grafana Built-in Templates. Can anybody provide any insights in to why I am getting this error for every alert that fires. error saving alert annotation batch: SQL logic error: too many SQL variables This looks like a Grafana bug. ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2026, 10:57am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/9 "2026-06-04T10:57:48Z")
No change in behavior after upgrading Grafana to 13.0.2. ![Screenshot 2026-06-04 065655](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/original/3X/f/9/f9f7612d56cf8b04b0c0f69a43176ca620f624d8.png) \<30\>1 2026-06-04T06:50:10.261409-04:00 raspberry05 grafana 8217 - - logger=ngalert.state.historian backend=annotations rule\_uid=cf50q8nv3ooaoe org\_id=1 t=2026-06-04T06:50:10.261053441-04:00 level=error msg=“Failed to save history batch” samples=1 err=“error saving alert annotation batch: SQL logic error: too many SQL variables (1)” ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/10 "2026-06-23T14:35:03Z")
No change in behavior after upgrading Grafana to 13.1.0 ![Screenshot 2026-06-23 100236](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/original/3X/3/0/303c4bce40c5c0d0d679c47852c6397ba4e2bab4.png) \<30\>1 2026-06-23T10:31:10.241667-04:00 raspberry05 grafana 42357 - - logger=ngalert.state.historian backend=annotations rule\_uid=cf50q8nv3ooaoe org\_id=1 t=2026-06-23T10:31:10.241336634-04:00 level=error msg=“Failed to save history batch” samples=1 err=“error saving alert annotation batch: SQL logic error: too many SQL variables (1)” ---
**Author:** ![infofcc3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/grafana/user_avatar/community.grafana.com/infofcc3/32/51248_2.png) [@infofcc3](https://community.grafana.com/u/infofcc3)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 10:31am UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/11 "2026-06-24T10:31:13Z")
This is a Grafana bug → the default `annotations` historian generates a batch SQL insert that exceeds SQLite’s variable limit. Upgrading Grafana will not fix it. **Edit `/etc/grafana/grafana.ini`:** If you have Loki: ini ```auto [unified_alerting.state_history] enabled = true backend = loki loki_remote_url = http://localhost:3100 ``` If you have Prometheus: ini ```auto [unified_alerting.state_history] enabled = true backend = prometheus prometheus_target_datasource_uid = ``` If you have neither, migrate Grafana’s database to PostgreSQL or MySQL → both handle this correctly without SQLite’s variable limit. **Restart:** bash ```auto sudo systemctl restart grafana-server ``` **Confirm it:** bash ```auto sudo journalctl -fu grafana-server | grep historian ``` No `Failed to save history batch` = fixed. Please also file a bug at [Sign in to GitHub · GitHub](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/issues/new/choose) ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 1:24pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/12 "2026-06-24T13:24:47Z")
Thank You. I added to settings for loki and no more errors. I also run prometheus but have not added the settings for it as yet. ---
**Author:** ![scootertramp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@scootertramp](https://community.grafana.com/u/scootertramp)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 2:50pm UTC](https://community.grafana.com/t/error-saving-alert-annotation-batch/162761/13 "2026-08-08T14:50:35Z")
Unfortunately moving the alert annotations out of Grafana sqllite to Loki just moved what error I am seeing. [https://community.grafana.com/t/loki-errors-when-viewing-some-alert-rules-history/163864](https://community.grafana.com/t/loki-errors-when-viewing-some-alert-rules-history/163864)