diff --git a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
index e6ef9be1dd..54a17b98e3 100644
--- a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
+++ b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
@@ -21858,3 +21858,10 @@ test(2344.04, key(DT[, .(V4 = c("b", "a"), V2, V5 = c("y", "x"), V1)]), c("V1",
 
 # fread with quotes and single column #7366
 test(2345, fread('"this_that"\n"2025-01-01 00:00:01"'), data.table(this_that = as.POSIXct("2025-01-01 00:00:01", tz="UTC")))
+
+# one-byte stack overflow in strlim() to be tested with sanitizers, #7408
+text = paste0(
+ strrep("mary had a little lamb\n", 100),
+ strrep("a", 500), "\n", "a"
+)
+test(2346, data.table::fread(text = text), data.table(mary = rep("mary", 99), had = "had", a = "a", little = "little", lamb = "lamb"), warning = "First discarded non-empty line")
diff --git a/src/fread.c b/src/fread.c
index 51b08af3fc..beca9a2f43 100644
--- a/src/fread.c
+++ b/src/fread.c
@@ -219,15 +219,16 @@ static inline int64_t clamp_i64t(int64_t x, int64_t lower, int64_t upper)
 /**
  * Helper for error and warning messages to extract an input line starting at
  * `*ch` and until an end of line, but no longer than `limit` characters.
- * This function returns the string copied into an internal static buffer. Cannot
- * be called more than twice per single printf() invocation.
- * Parameter `limit` cannot exceed 500.
+ * This function returns the string copied into a caller-allocated buffer (typically on the stack).
+ * Parameter `limit` should not exceed STRLIM_BUF_SIZE-1 (500).
  * The data might contain % characters. Therefore, careful to ensure that if the msg
  * is constructed manually (using say snprintf) that warning(), stop()
  * and Rprintf() are all called as warning(_("%s"), msg) and not warning(msg).
  */
-static const char* strlim(const char *ch, char buf[static 500], size_t limit)
+#define STRLIM_BUF_SIZE 501
+static const char* strlim(const char *ch, char buf[static STRLIM_BUF_SIZE], size_t limit)
 {
+  if (limit >= STRLIM_BUF_SIZE) limit = STRLIM_BUF_SIZE-1;
   char *ch2 = buf;
   for (size_t width = 0; (*ch > '\r' || (*ch != '\0' && *ch != '\r' && *ch != '\n')) && width < limit; width++) {
     *ch2++ = *ch++;
@@ -1776,7 +1777,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args)
   if (ch >= eof) STOP(_("Input is either empty, fully whitespace, or skip has been set after the last non-whitespace."));
   if (verbose) {
     if (lineStart > ch) DTPRINT(_("  Moved forward to first non-blank line (%d)\n"), row1line);
-    DTPRINT(_("  Positioned on line %d starting: <<%s>>\n"), row1line, strlim(lineStart, (char[500]) {0}, 30));
+    DTPRINT(_("  Positioned on line %d starting: <<%s>>\n"), row1line, strlim(lineStart, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 30));
   }
   ch = pos = lineStart;
   }
@@ -1982,7 +1983,7 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args)
     if (!fill && tt != ncol) INTERNAL_STOP("first line has field count %d but expecting %d", tt, ncol); // # nocov
     if (verbose) {
       DTPRINT(_("  Detected %d columns on line %d. This line is either column names or first data row. Line starts as: <<%s>>\n"),
-              tt, row1line, strlim(pos, (char[500]) {0}, 30));
+              tt, row1line, strlim(pos, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 30));
       DTPRINT(_("  Quote rule picked = %d\n"), quoteRule);
       DTPRINT(_("  fill=%s and the most number of columns found is %d\n"), fill ? "true" : "false", ncol);
     }
@@ -2950,23 +2951,23 @@ int freadMain(freadMainArgs _args)
       ch = skip_to_nextline(ch, eof);
       while (ch < eof && isspace(*ch)) ch++;
       if (ch == eof) {
-        DTWARN(_("Discarded single-line footer: <<%s>>"), strlim(skippedFooter, (char[500]) {0}, 500));
+        DTWARN(_("Discarded single-line footer: <<%s>>"), strlim(skippedFooter, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 500));
       }
       else {
         ch = headPos;
         int tt = countfields(&ch);
         if (fill > 0) {
           DTWARN(_("Stopped early on line %"PRId64". Expected %d fields but found %d. Consider fill=%d or even more based on your knowledge of the input file. Use fill=Inf for reading the whole file for detecting the number of fields. First discarded non-empty line: <<%s>>"),
-          DTi + row1line, ncol, tt, tt, strlim(skippedFooter, (char[500]) {0}, 500));
+          DTi + row1line, ncol, tt, tt, strlim(skippedFooter, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 500));
         } else {
           DTWARN(_("Stopped early on line %"PRId64". Expected %d fields but found %d. Consider fill=TRUE. First discarded non-empty line: <<%s>>"),
-          DTi + row1line, ncol, tt, strlim(skippedFooter, (char[500]) {0}, 500));
+          DTi + row1line, ncol, tt, strlim(skippedFooter, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 500));
         }
       }
     }
   }
   if (quoteRuleBumpedCh != NULL && quoteRuleBumpedCh < headPos) {
-    DTWARN(_("Found and resolved improper quoting out-of-sample. First healed line %"PRId64": <<%s>>. If the fields are not quoted (e.g. field separator does not appear within any field), try quote=\"\" to avoid this warning."), quoteRuleBumpedLine, strlim(quoteRuleBumpedCh, (char[500]) {0}, 500));
+    DTWARN(_("Found and resolved improper quoting out-of-sample. First healed line %"PRId64": <<%s>>. If the fields are not quoted (e.g. field separator does not appear within any field), try quote=\"\" to avoid this warning."), quoteRuleBumpedLine, strlim(quoteRuleBumpedCh, (char[STRLIM_BUF_SIZE]) {0}, 500));
   }
 
   if (verbose) {