StackOverflowError in kafka-coordinator-heartbeat-thread

With Kafka 1.0 our consumer groups fall into a permanent cycle of rebalancing once a StackOverflowError in the heartbeat thread occurred due to connectivity issues of the consumers to the coordinating broker:

Immediately before the exception there are hundreds, if not thousands of log entries of following type:

2017-12-12 16:23:12.361 [kafka-coordinator-heartbeat-thread |
my-consumer-group] INFO - [Consumer clientId=consumer-4,
groupId=my-consumer-group] Marking the coordinator <IP>:<Port> (id:
2147483645 rack: null) dead

The exceptions always happen somewhere in the DateFormat code, even
though at different lines.

2017-12-12 16:23:12.363 [kafka-coordinator-heartbeat-thread |
my-consumer-group] ERROR - Uncaught exception in thread
'kafka-coordinator-heartbeat-thread | my-consumer-group':
java.lang.StackOverflowError
at
java.text.DateFormatSymbols.getProviderInstance(DateFormatSymbols.java:362)
at
java.text.DateFormatSymbols.getInstance(DateFormatSymbols.java:340)
at java.util.Calendar.getDisplayName(Calendar.java:2110)
at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.subFormat(SimpleDateFormat.java:1125)
at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.format(SimpleDateFormat.java:966)
at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.format(SimpleDateFormat.java:936)
at java.text.DateFormat.format(DateFormat.java:345)
at
org.apache.log4j.helpers.PatternParser$DatePatternConverter.convert(PatternParser.java:443)
at
org.apache.log4j.helpers.PatternConverter.format(PatternConverter.java:65)
at org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout.format(PatternLayout.java:506)
at
org.apache.log4j.WriterAppender.subAppend(WriterAppender.java:310)
at org.apache.log4j.WriterAppender.append(WriterAppender.java:162)
at
org.apache.log4j.AppenderSkeleton.doAppend(AppenderSkeleton.java:251)
at
org.apache.log4j.helpers.AppenderAttachableImpl.appendLoopOnAppenders(AppenderAttachableImpl.java:66)
at org.apache.log4j.Category.callAppenders(Category.java:206)
at org.apache.log4j.Category.forcedLog(Category.java:391)
at org.apache.log4j.Category.log(Category.java:856)
at
org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerAdapter.info(Log4jLoggerAdapter.java:324)
at
org.apache.kafka.common.utils.LogContext$KafkaLogger.info(LogContext.java:341)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.AbstractCoordinator.coordinatorDead(AbstractCoordinator.java:649)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.AbstractCoordinator$CoordinatorResponseHandler.onFailure(AbstractCoordinator.java:797)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture$1.onFailure(RequestFuture.java:209)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture.fireFailure(RequestFuture.java:177)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture.raise(RequestFuture.java:147)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient$RequestFutureCompletionHandler.fireCompletion(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:496)
...
the following 9 lines are repeated around hundred times.
...
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient$RequestFutureCompletionHandler.fireCompletion(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:496)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient.firePendingCompletedRequests(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:353)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient.failUnsentRequests(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:416)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient.disconnect(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:388)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.AbstractCoordinator.coordinatorDead(AbstractCoordinator.java:653)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.AbstractCoordinator$CoordinatorResponseHandler.onFailure(AbstractCoordinator.java:797)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture$1.onFailure(RequestFuture.java:209)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture.fireFailure(RequestFuture.java:177)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.RequestFuture.raise(RequestFuture.java:147)
at
org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient$RequestFutureCompletionHandler.fireCompletion(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:496)