Check the GRPC message content as well

integration/e2e/limits_test.go

@@ -244,7 +244,7 @@ func TestQueryLimits(t *testing.T) {
 	time.Sleep(15 * time.Second)
 	_, err = client.QueryTrace(tempoUtil.TraceIDToHexString(traceID[:]))
 	require.ErrorContains(t, err, "trace exceeds max size")
-	require.ErrorContains(t, err, "failed with response: 500") // confirm frontend returns 500
+	require.ErrorContains(t, err, "failed with response: 413") // confirm frontend returns 500
 
 	_, err = querierClient.QueryTrace(tempoUtil.TraceIDToHexString(traceID[:]))
 	require.ErrorContains(t, err, "trace exceeds max size")

modules/frontend/handler.go

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ var (
 	errCanceled              = httpgrpc.Errorf(StatusClientClosedRequest, context.Canceled.Error())
 	errDeadlineExceeded      = httpgrpc.Errorf(http.StatusGatewayTimeout, context.DeadlineExceeded.Error())
 	errRequestEntityTooLarge = httpgrpc.Errorf(http.StatusRequestEntityTooLarge, "http: request body too large")
-	errTraceTooLarge         = httpgrpc.Errorf(http.StatusRequestEntityTooLarge, "body: trace too large")
+	errTraceTooLarge         = httpgrpc.Errorf(http.StatusRequestEntityTooLarge, "http: trace exceeds max size")
 )
 
 // handler exists to wrap a roundtripper with an HTTP handler. It wraps all
@@ -177,5 +177,5 @@ func isRequestBodyTooLarge(err error) bool {
 }
 
 func isTraceTooLarge(err error) bool {
-	return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "body: trace exceeds max size")
+	return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "trace exceeds max size")
 }

modules/querier/http.go

@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import (
 	"errors"
 	"fmt"
 	"net/http"
+	"strings"
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/golang/protobuf/jsonpb" //nolint:all //deprecated
@@ -425,8 +426,9 @@ func handleError(w http.ResponseWriter, err error) {
 		return
 	}
 
-	// todo: better understand all errors returned from queriers and categorize more as 4XX
-	if errors.Is(err, trace.ErrTraceTooLarge) {
+	// TODO: better understand all errors returned from queriers and categorize more as 4XX
+	// NOTE: we receive a GRPC error from the ingesters, and so we need to check the string content of error as well.
+	if errors.Is(err, trace.ErrTraceTooLarge) || strings.Contains(err.Error(), trace.ErrTraceTooLarge.Error()) {
 		http.Error(w, err.Error(), http.StatusRequestEntityTooLarge)
 		return
 	}