---
type: bug
severity: normal
summary: When the account record cannot be resolved, the inbox enumeration reports a COMPLETE list holding zero inboxes, so a total failure is indistinguishable from an identity that legitimately has none
opened: 2026-08-17
last_checked: 2026-08-17
---

# An empty inbox list can mean a failure

Enumerating the inboxes an identity may read reports, alongside the list, whether that list is **complete** or **short** — and a shortfall is logged so a lost watch is at least visible.

That signal has a hole. When resolving the account record yields nothing rather than raising, the enumeration reports a list that is **complete and empty**. Every inbox is missing, including the identity's own, and nothing distinguishes it from an identity that genuinely has none yet — which is a real and ordinary state, since a first-visit identity connects with no account.

So the worst outcome — watching nothing at all — is reported as the most benign one. This is the family this package has closed repeatedly: **a failure wearing the shape of an absence.**

The fix is not to make the enumeration throw. Reaching the registers is infrastructure and may fail; what is missing is that *resolving nothing* and *there being nothing* are the same answer here, and they are not the same event.

**Verifying it:** make the account resolution return nothing (rather than reject) and observe that the enumeration reports a complete list with no entries, and that no shortfall is logged.

Related, and distinct: [[bug_a-lost-inbox-watch-is-never-retried]] — that one is about a watch that failed to open; this one is about never learning there was a watch to open.