SELECT uniqCombined(number) FROM numbers(10000) GROUP BY number WITH TOTALS ORDER BY number DESC LIMIT 10 SETTINGS /* force aggregates serialization to trigger the issue with */ max_bytes_before_external_group_by=1, /* overflow row: */ max_rows_to_group_by=10000000000, group_by_overflow_mode='any', totals_mode='before_having', /* this is to account memory under 4MB (for max_bytes_before_external_group_by) to use less rows */ max_untracked_memory=0, group_by_two_level_threshold=10000, /* explicitly */ max_block_size=1000, max_threads=1 ;