RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded

"Maximum call stack size exceeded" has non-obvious triggers beyond classic recursive functions. JSON.stringify() on a circular object reference is a frequent culprit in Node.js applications: Express response bodies, Mongoose document objects with populated back-references, and Socket.io message payloads can contain circular structures. While some serializers handle this gracefully, JSON.stringify throws a stack overflow instead of a meaningful circular reference error. React server-side rendering also surfaces this error when a component's props contain circular objects — common when serializing Mongoose documents with back-references or complex state trees. The SSR renderer's tree-walking function recurses into the circular reference indefinitely. A third pattern involves deeply nested data from external APIs. Some REST APIs return pagination wrappers many levels deep that exceed V8's call stack when processed recursively. V8 allows roughly 10,000–15,000 stack frames depending on frame size. The diagnostic: check the stack trace. If it shows the same function name repeating hundreds of times, you have true recursion missing a base case. If it shows stringify, deepClone, or render, you have a circular reference. For circular references, use a custom replacer with a WeakSet to track seen objects, or use the flatted or safe-stable-stringify npm packages which handle circular serialization without custom code.