The subprocess-booting test suites hand-picked fixed ports in a cramped ~3955-4021 range, and
156-schedule-read-path deviated to a RANDOM port (3900 + rand%90) that overlapped those fixed
ports. Under CI load two servers could race on the same port, surfacing as flaky "no such table:
devices" / "FOREIGN KEY constraint failed" (a server answering a request against a half-migrated
or wrong DB). It's environmental — the suites pass locally and in isolation.
Fix: a shared test/helpers/free-port.js (bind :0 on loopback, read the OS-assigned port, release)
called in before() so every suite gets a guaranteed-unique ephemeral port — concurrent suites can
no longer collide, and no one has to hand-assign ports.
- Codemod converted 30 suites: const PORT = <fixed|random> -> let PORT (+ BASE) assigned via
`PORT = await freePort()` at the top of before().
- 3 hand-fixed (different structure): 148-eviction-storm (lowercase `base`), boot-health (no
before() — allocates PORT + a throwaway SEED_PORT inside the test, replacing the hardcoded
3894), totp-keyrotation (no before() — allocates at the test start before bootServer()).
No fixed 39xx/40xx ports remain. Full server suite 435/435; the 4 hand-touched suites pass in
isolation. Pure test-infra change — no app code touched.
Bold beta1: three devices spam "Fingerprint reclaim rejected ... device active
(status=offline, ~2500s since heartbeat, liveConn=false)" twice/~2s indefinitely —
contradictory: gone by every signal yet treated as active.
Root cause (NOT a missing clear — corrected the hypothesis). The reject condition
was `liveConn || status==='online' || secondsSince < RECLAIM_GRACE_SECONDS(24h)`.
For the observed devices liveConn=false and status=offline, so the ONLY true term
is `secondsSince < 24h` — an effective 24h CALENDAR grace, not a stale flag. Audited
the clears: liveConn (deviceConnections) is removed on the debounced disconnect
(heartbeat.removeConnection) AND the offline_timeout sweep (deviceConnections.delete);
status is set 'offline' on both. liveConn=false + status=offline PROVE the clears
ran — there is nothing stale to clear. The 24h time gate (mislabeled "device active")
blocked a legitimately-gone device from reclaiming for up to 24h, so it retried
every ~2s forever-in-practice. The "twice per ~2s" is two reclaim ATTEMPTS per cycle
(client reconnect + re-pair-on-auth-error), each hitting the single console.warn —
not double-logging in one attempt.
Fix:
- Decide "still alive" from RUNTIME signals: `!!liveConn || secondsSince <
reclaimSettleSeconds`. A device with no live socket and a heartbeat older than the
settle window is gone -> reclaimable. A live (or just-seen) device is still
rejected, so reclaim-abuse protection holds. NOT just ignoring "active" — it fixes
WHY it was stuck (the 24h gate). RECLAIM_SETTLE_SECONDS default 300 (was 24h).
SECURITY TRADEOFF flagged in config: shortens the anti-fingerprint-theft window;
raise to re-tighten. Tuning guess to validate vs Bold.
- Log throttle: the deferral logs at most once per device per RECLAIM_REJECT_LOG_
WINDOW_MS (default 60s) — collapses the double-log + the per-2s flood (same
discipline as the content-ack shed log). Cleared when a reclaim proceeds.
Recovery of the 3 wedged devices (2febcaa9, 1984694c, 139159eb): they SELF-HEAL on
their next reclaim attempt (~2s) once this ships — their heartbeats are ~2500s stale
(>300s settle) and liveConn=false, so the reclaim now succeeds. No operator SQL needed.
Tests (port 3988): gone device reclaims; live device still rejected; clear-on-leave
(disconnect clears liveConn -> stale device reclaims); deferral log <=1 per window.
Full suite green serial+parallel (217). reconnect-throttle.js, the dbac699 content-ack
limiter, and the 404c330 block/auth code untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
