Sporadic Stack Overflow error in java Matcher

Question

I have a some file parser code where I sporadically get stack overflow errors on m.matches() (where m is a Matcher).

I run my app again and it parses the same file with no stack overflow.

It's true my Pattern is a bit complex. It's basically a bunch of optional zero length positive lookaheads with named groups inside of them so that I can match a bunch of variable name/value pairs irregardless of their order. But I would expect that if some string would cause a stack overflow error it would always cause it... not just sometimes... any ideas?

A much simplified version of my Pattern "prefix(?=\\s+user=(?<user>\\S+))?(?=\\s+repo=(?<repo>\\S+))?.*?"

full regex is...

app=github(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+user=(?<user>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+repo=(?<repo>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+remote_address=(?<ip>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+now="(?<time>\S+)\+\d\d:\d\d")?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+url="(?<url>\S+)")?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+referer="(?<referer>\S+)")?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+status=(?<status>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+elapsed=(?<elapsed>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+request_method=(?<requestmethod>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+created_at="(?<createdat>\S+)(?:-|\+)\d\d:\d\d")?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+pull_request_id=(?<pullrequestid>\d+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+at=(?<at>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+fn=(?<fn>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+method=(?<method>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+current_user=(?<user2>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+content_length=(?<contentlength>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+request_category=(?<requestcategory>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+controller=(?<controller>\S+))?(?=(?:[^"]|"[^"]*")*\s+action=(?<action>\S+))?.*?

Top of stack overflow error stack... (it's about 9800 lines long)

Exception: java.lang.StackOverflowError
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$BranchConn.match(Pattern.java:4480)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$CharProperty.match(Pattern.java:3706)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Branch.match(Pattern.java:4516)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupHead.match(Pattern.java:4570)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$Loop.match(Pattern.java:4697)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern$GroupTail.match(Pattern.java:4629)

example of line I got error on. (Though I have run it 10 times since and not gotten any error)

app=github env=production enterprise=true auth_fingerprint=\"token:6b29527b:9.99.999.99\" controller=\"Api::GitCommits\" path_info=\"/api/v3/repos/XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc/git/commits/77ae1376f969059f5f1e23cc5669bff8cca50563.diff\" query_string=nil version=v3 auth=oauth current_user=abcdefghijk oauth_access_id=24 oauth_application_id=0 oauth_scopes=\"gist,notifications,repo,user\" route=\"/repositories/:repository_id/git/commits/:id\" org=XYZ-ABCDE oauth_party=personal repo=XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc repo_visibility=private now=\"2015-09-24T13:44:52+00:00\" request_id=675fa67e-c1de-4bfa-a965-127b928d427a server_id=c31404fc-b7d0-41a1-8017-fc1a6dce8111 remote_address=9.99.999.99 request_method=get content_length=92 content_type=\"application/json; charset=utf-8\" user_agent=nil accept=application/json language=nil referer=nil x_requested_with=nil status=404 elapsed=0.041 url=\"https://git.abc.abcd.abc.com/api/v3/repos/XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc/git/commits/77ae1376f969059f5f1e23cc5669bff8cca50563.diff\" worker_request_count=77192 request_category=apiapp=github env=production enterprise=true auth_fingerprint=\"token:6b29527b:9.99.999.99\" controller=\"Api::GitCommits\" path_info=\"/api/v3/repos/XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc/git/commits/9bee255c7b13c589f4e9f1cb2d4ebb5b8519ba9c.diff\" query_string=nil version=v3 auth=oauth current_user=abcdefghijk oauth_access_id=24 oauth_application_id=0 oauth_scopes=\"gist,notifications,repo,user\" route=\"/repositories/:repository_id/git/commits/:id\" org=XYZ-ABCDE oauth_party=personal repo=XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc repo_visibility=private now=\"2015-09-24T13:44:52+00:00\" request_id=89fcb32e-9ab5-47f7-9464-e5f5cff175e8 server_id=1b74880a-5124-4483-adce-111b60dac111 remote_address=9.99.999.99 request_method=get content_length=92 content_type=\"application/json; charset=utf-8\" user_agent=nil accept=application/json language=nil referer=nil x_requested_with=nil status=404 elapsed=0.024 url=\"https://git.abc.abcd.abc.com/api/v3/repos/XYZ-ABCDE/abcdefg-abc/git/commits/9bee255c7b13c589f4e9f1cb2d4ebb5b8519ba9c.diff\" worker_request_count=76263 request_category=api

interestingly... this line seems to be an error... the log seems to put a line break in the wrong place resulting in two log entries being on a single line followed by a blank line. It's this long line that caused the error... well once anyway... now it runs just fine without stack overflow