The Apache Kafka consumer documentation explains that when a RecordDeserializationException occurs, the consumer cannot continue polling until the problematic offset is skipped. Simply logging the error is insufficient, because the consumer will repeatedly fail on the same record.

The recommended pattern is to log the malformed record, extract its topic, partition, and offset from the exception, and then call consumer.seek() to move the consumer position to the next offset (offset + 1). This allows the application to skip the poison pill and resume processing subsequent records.

Option B is invalid because Kafka does not provide a consumer.skip() API. Option C is unnecessary if the application is designed to tolerate malformed records. Option D results in an infinite failure loop.

Therefore, seeking past the bad record after logging it is the correct and officially documented way to handle poison pill records while maintaining consumer liveness and resilience.