archy/docs/HANDOFF-2026-07-23-companion-apk-deploy.md

HANDOFF — deploy companion APK 0.5.1 (vc21) to nodes

For: the agent on archi-dev-box. User-reported failure this evening: pairing flow on Framework PT — downloaded the companion from the node's QR, then the pairing scan didn't work. The APK the node serves predates today's scanner fixes; the pipeline below gets the fixed build into the user's hands.

What changed on main today (all merged)

• Pairing-scanner fix (QrScannerOverlay.kt): ZXing decode attempts are frame-gated (~7/s, was every frame — the CPU contention made the preview stutter badly enough to never decode) and PreviewView uses TextureView (no more black flash on open). This is the likely fix for "doesn't scan".
• Three-finger menu gesture (was two-finger, collided with scroll) + one-time teaching overlay ~2 min after login.
• Native wallet QR scanner behind window.ArchipelagoQr + WebView file-chooser support; web scan modal hands live scanning to it.
• npub-keyed saved servers (pairing contract item 1, PR #106).
• Served APK refreshed: neode-ui/public/packages/archipelago-companion.apk is now 0.5.3 / versionCode 23. On top of the 0.5.1 scanner fixes it guarantees dual-path peering — the node's LAN endpoint (direct p2p, npub- keyed dial hints) AND the Archipelago public anchor (vps2, baked into the app so even an old node's QR can't leave the phone LAN-only) — and fixes the two field failures from the user's 5G test (screenshots, 21:54):
  • Mesh VPN no longer kills the phone's internet — the IPv6-only TUN never called allowFamily(AF_INET), so Android blocked all IPv4 while the mesh was up. Now allowed (+ allowBypass).
  • Off-LAN connect works — connect() no longer hard-fails when the scanned LAN IP doesn't answer; it brings the mesh up and probes the node's ULA (meshIp) with retries before reporting failure.

What to do

1. Redeploy the web-ui bundle from current main to the active nodes — web root /opt/archipelago/web-ui/ (NOT a neode-ui/ subfolder), all nodes the user pairs against, at minimum the one Framework PT scans.
2. Verify the served artifact really updated: curl -sI http://<node>/packages/archipelago-companion.apk — size should change (~27 MB build of 2026-07-23), or pull it and check aapt dump badging shows versionCode='21' versionName='0.5.1'.
3. The demo stack gets its images from CI (run 100 pushed today with the new web bundle) — confirm the Portainer stack re-pulled, or trigger its redeploy, so the demo QR also serves vc21.
4. Node side is half the 5G story: away-from-home reachability needs the NODE connected to the public anchor too. On Framework PT (and any test node): deploy current main (node-side npub-first fips.pair-info), then verify sudo -n fipsctl show status reports the anchor connected — fips.reconnect RPC if not. A phone can dial the anchor perfectly and still fail if the node never enrolled with it.
5. Re-test the user's exact flows with vc24 (updates any older install in place): (a) pair ON the LAN, then switch the phone to 5G — the UI must come up via the mesh ULA; (b) pair while ALREADY on 5G (never on the node's LAN) — scan, VPN consent, and the connect must succeed through the anchor.

Live diagnosis update (22:30–22:50, phone on adb — Mac agent)

vc23 on-device testing found and fixed the phone-side blocker, and narrowed what remains to the node side. State as of vc24:

• Fixed: TUN reader died at startup. Android hands the VpnService fd over non-blocking; the fips fork's blocking reader thread treats EAGAIN as fatal ("TUN read error … Try again (os error 11)") — so mesh sessions came up but NO packet ever entered the tunnel. archy-fips-core now forces the fd blocking before start_with_tun_fd. Verified on-device: reader survives, and the 30s anchor-link flap disappeared with it (stable 8+ min on 5G).
• Fixed: VPN marked not-metered (setMetered(false)) — Android 10+ defaults VPNs to metered, putting the phone into data-restricted behaviour while the mesh is up. Note the user's phone also has system always-on VPN enabled for the app (always_on_vpn_app), a Settings-side toggle.
• Verified good on-device: peer store has node (LAN udp/tcp hints) + vps2 anchor; saved server is npub-keyed with ULA; anchor session establishes from 5G in ~6s; VPN is bypassable, VALIDATED, only fd00::/8 routed.
• REMAINING BLOCKER (node side): from the phone (app uid), ping6 and HTTP to the node's ULA fd79:1aa:b9e9:4c9f:1f80:5376:9385:1824 get no reply — packets enter the mesh, nothing returns. Phone↔anchor works, so suspect phone-fork ↔ node-daemon session/routing mismatch (FIPS wire format is not stable across revs; phone pins fips-native fork 46494a74). From Framework PT please capture:
  • fipsctl show status (daemon version + anchor state)
  • fipsctl show sessions and show bloom while the phone pings
  • ping6 <phone ULA fd68:496d:fe34:a06d:cf1:6e4:b6a4:3586> from the node (tests the reverse path)
  • ip addr show fips0 + confirm the web server listens on [::]:80 Report whether the node ever sees a session attempt from npub132c5whrsa6ccs0eylcpzaejq9uxul5ldvczz0axq78dh7fxkqj9st4uvzu.

Node-side diagnosis complete (23:00–23:30, archi-dev-box agent)

Chain of findings, each verified live:

1. FIXED: nginx had no IPv6 listener anywhere — every shipped config listened on 0.0.0.0 only, so http://[<ULA>] could NEVER connect on any node, ever. Live-fixed on framework-pt + .116, canonical conf + bootstrap self-heal shipped (1e89362e), heal binary deployed. ULA HTTP verified answering on both nodes (local + over-mesh).
2. Firewall clean, fd00::/8 routes correct both ends, wire compat proven (node + vps2 anchor both run fips 0.4.1 rev 15db6471db — the latest upstream stable; nothing newer exists).
3. THE REMAINING PROBLEM IS MESH SESSION PATH QUALITY. From the vps2 anchor — a DIRECT connected peer — GET /health on the node's ULA takes 15–17 s per request and intermittently fails outright (nginx logs show 499 client-gave-up then 200; TCP SYN-retransmit backoff signature). Session MMP is wildly asymmetric: node→vps2 srtt 204 ms, vps2→node srtt 4270 ms — on a direct link whose raw RTT is 4 ms. Session traffic is not riding the direct link; it appears to route through the ~1271-node public tree (node's tree root is the public 00001a8c, depth 8; the node's log also shows chronic "Discovery lookup timed out" for other targets).
4. The phone's npub never appears in the node's sessions — consistent with discovery/handshake dying on the same degraded tree path, and the app's ~8 s probe window being far smaller than the observed 15 s+ first-request latency even on the GOOD path.

Recommendations

• App side (Mac agent): widen the ULA probe/connect window to ≥30 s with retransmit-friendly pacing, and PRE-WARM the mesh session (start pinging the node ULA as soon as the VPN is up, decoupled from the UI probe) so the WebView hits a warm session.
• Infra decision (user): consider detaching the fleet from the public v0l mesh — private tree rooted at the vps2 anchor (drop the legacy 185.18.221.160 seed anchor fleet-wide AND vps2's public peering). A 2-hop private tree would make session paths ride the direct links and should collapse latency to ms. Trade-off: no reachability to/from the broader public mesh.
• Upstream: report the direct-peer session-path asymmetry to jmcorgan/fips (0.4.1).

App-side recommendations implemented (23:30–23:50, Mac agent — 0.5.5/vc25)

• Connect probe: mesh ULA now probed inside a 60s budget with 15s per-phase timeouts (rides out TCP retransmit backoff), replacing the old ~8s window.
• Session pre-warm: the VPN service starts probing every saved node ULA the moment the tunnel is up (5s cadence for the first minute, then a 60s keep-warm tick) — discovery/handshake cost is paid in the background, and the session never idles out while the mesh is connected.
• Extra evidence for the infra decision: from the phone on 5G, a 25-packet ping burst to the node's ULA (25s continuous traffic, post-nginx-fix) still got zero replies — discovery through the public tree isn't just slow, it's failing outright. The private-tree option (detach fleet from the public v0l mesh, root at vps2) looks like the real fix; app-side patience only helps once discovery succeeds at all.