Sylvain Duchesne
22 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
22 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: bug
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severity: normal
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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
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opened: 2026-08-17
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last_checked: 2026-08-17
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---
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# An empty inbox list can mean a failure
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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.
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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.
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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.**
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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.
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**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.
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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.
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