A dead encoder used to run the whole stop path, so a one-second blip ended the broadcast. Now a dropped
push is relaunched against the same ingest while the broadcast is still alive.
- `Services/StreamRetryPolicy.cs` — immediate, +1 s, +2 s, +3 s. Minimum waits on purpose (creator
ruling): YouTube's grace is short, so every second not pushing is grace spent.
- `Services/StreamRecovery.cs` — the loop, with the audio pipe recreated before every attempt (its
server is single-instance and unusable after the old client dies, so a naive relaunch fails on a
missing input). After a push comes up it asks the API whether the broadcast survived: "complete"
ends recovery as `BroadcastComplete` instead of showing a live sign over a dead stream; an API
hiccup counts as recovered rather than ending a healthy session.
- `FramePump.EncoderFailed` — a dead push is recoverable; a compositor fault still goes through
`Failed` and ends the session, because retrying it would loop.
- `MainViewModel.Recovery.cs` — wires the steps, reports each episode into the left panel alert stack
(one row per episode, updated in place, log range painted), and cancels on Stop.
- Alert stack polish: a rule and a gap now separate the stack from the scene layers (they read as one
list before), and the licence indicator uses the creator's wording — `STEAM ID NOT PRESENT` /
`Steam ID Limit: 30fps` / `Click for More Info`, becoming `STEAM ID PRESENT` / `60fps` with a close
control once owned.
Tests: `StreamRecoveryTests` (schedule, recover on attempt 2 with the pipe restarted each time,
complete-broadcast honesty, unknown liveness, give-up, cancel, audio-restart fault),
`FramePumpTests` now pin that process death raises `EncoderFailed` and not `Failed`.
FAST gate: 538 passed (one documented pre-existing audio failure), 0 warnings.
Add independent AppLog message types and explicit Class 1/2 severity. Wrap and color log rows, pin Class 1 above Class 2, and let acknowledgement return entries to the current-launch timeline without changing file format or rotation.
Ref: https://logtape.org/manual/levels
root cause (proven, not inferred): contentDetails.boundStreamId on
liveBroadcasts.insert does NOT bind the broadcast. Our diagnostic reads
lifeCycle=created privacy=private autoStart=true bound=NONE
boundMatches=NO-BINDING | streamStatus=active
created is Google's "incomplete settings" state, so enableAutoStart has no
bound stream to fire from; close-out then 403s invalidTransition because
created -> complete is not a legal edge. A reusable stream accepts bytes for
a broadcast that isn't watching it, so a perfectly healthy 99MB RTMP session
is exactly what an unbound broadcast looks like -- every observable pointed
away from the binding.
Google's migration guide states the rule outright: a liveBroadcast must be
bound to exactly one stream before it can start, and is not bound at creation.
That was in the docs read during the original design and was not applied.
Shipped:
- BindBroadcastAsync -> POST liveBroadcasts/bind?part=id&id&streamId (no body),
called from PrepareAndStartLiveAsync right after CreateBroadcast, before the pump.
Failure is fatal to the session: an unbound broadcast can never go live, so a
live-looking UI over one is a lie.
- boundStreamId removed from the insert body, and the streamId parameter removed
from CreateBroadcast. A parameter that looks meaningful but cannot affect the
outcome is what made the misdiagnosis possible.
- Replaced CreateBroadcast_With_StreamId_Binds_Reusable_Stream_At_Insert, which
asserted the disproven behaviour and therefore laundered a guess into a
guarantee, with tests for the omitted field and the real bind endpoint.
Error messages (creator ruling 2026-10-04): bind failures are not all "check the
sign-in". Six documented reasons exist and only one is auth; BindFailureMessage
gives each its own text, and the fallback passes the raw reason through verbatim
so an unmapped reason stays greppable. liveBroadcastBindingNotAllowed matters
most -- it means our ordering is wrong, and a generic re-auth message would hide
a bug in our own code behind a plausible excuse. See MyMistakes.md.
ai.md: also corrects the TASK 44 claim that liveChatId is only populated once the
broadcast is live. The diagnostic shows it present while lifecycle is created.
That claim was inferred from a sample's active-status guard, which is not a spec.
Suite 395/395, 0 warnings.
The run I asked for came back with three alarming lines:
lifeCycle=? privacy=? recording=? bound=NONE boundMatches=NO-BINDING
autoStart=unset autoStop=unset liveChatId=none | streamStatus=active
Every single broadcast field was empty, and the stream half was fine. That
combination is the tell: not a failed request, a wrong nesting level.
liveBroadcasts.list returns a LIST wrapper, so the broadcast is at items[0]. I
descended into items for the stream and read the response root for the
broadcast, so every lookup missed, and BoundMatches — handed a null it could
not distinguish from a real null — reported a confident NO-BINDING. The
diagnostic invented the bug it was written to find. Three lines of fabricated
alarm on the one run that was supposed to produce evidence.
Two fixes, and the second is the one that matters:
FirstItem() descends into items[0] for both halves, and returns default when
there is genuinely no item.
The line now prints boundMatches=unread when the broadcast could not be
read at all, so an absent parse degrades to "I don't know" instead of a
verdict. A diagnostic that guesses is worse than no diagnostic: this one
would have sent me off to rebuild a binding that may well be correct.
Test guards the regression: FirstItem_DescendsIntoTheListWrapper_AndReports-
AbsenceHonestly, including the empty-items and missing-items cases. Suite
390/390, 0 warnings.
Credit to the run for catching it. What it did establish, from the half that
worked: streamStatus goes ready -> active about 30s into the push. So the
ingest registers as active server-side, which combined with the 99MB muxed
yesterday means the stream half is verified healthy end to end. The broadcast
half needs one more run to say anything.
The logs answered the question and closed off a whole branch of investigation.
The long run: broadcast inserted 14:17:04.577, ffmpeg to
rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/5f6z-... at 14:17:05.686, and ffmpeg's own
muxing summary at 14:18:56.473 reads
video:101229KiB audio:1419KiB muxing overhead: 0.202949%
~99MB of real video plus audio over 112s, which is what 8000+128 kb/s is
supposed to produce. No socket error, no 4xx from ingest, no reconnect. And the
broadcast still never left `ready`; close-out 403'd invalidTransition again. The
8s run behaved the same way, so "YouTube needed longer" is disproven — 112s is
longer.
So the RTMP path is provably healthy. That is the finding worth keeping: it
kills the entire "the push is broken" theory, which is where this had been
heading for a week. The break is between ingest being accepted and the broadcast
being told to start.
Which puts the binding in frame, and the app was structurally blind to it.
Google documents contentDetails.boundStreamId and says enableAutoStart fires
"when you start streaming video on the bound live stream" — both valid on
insert, neither restricted against reusable streams. But the migration guide
also says a broadcast "is not bound to any streams at the time that it's
created", and the failure that produces is invisible from the RTMP side
precisely because a reusable stream will happily accept bytes for an unbound
broadcast. Ingest succeeding proves nothing.
Hence LogBroadcastDiagnosticsAsync, riding the existing health poll rather than
adding a timer. One greppable line: lifecycle status, privacy, recording,
boundStreamId *compared against the stream id we are actually pushing*
(BoundMatches: yes / MISMATCH / NO-BINDING / unknown), boundStreamLastUpdate-
TimeMs, autoStart/Stop, liveChatId presence, the stream's own streamStatus and
activeLiveChatId, and the CDN settings we declared.
Deliberately self-limiting: _broadcastSeenLive latches on live/liveStarting so
the diagnostic shouts only while the broadcast is stuck and goes quiet once it
is healthy. A permanent per-tick log line would be noise; this is the opposite.
One test, per the Good Dog rule: BroadcastBindingTests pins the matrix and
specifically pins `unknown` when there is no stream id to compare against, so a
missing expectation can never be misreported as a match — that is the failure
that would make this diagnostic lie.
Suite 387/387, 0 warnings.
The liveChatId fix (TASK 44) worked on the next Test Stream, but every Mock
Chat Input send returned 'YouTube rejected the message (error 400)'. The
runtime log's body: 400 MISSING_REQUIRED_FIELD, domain
youtube.api.v3.LiveChatMessageInsertResponse.Error.
The liveChat/messages.insert snippet requires type ('textMessageEvent' or
'pollEvent') alongside liveChatId and textMessageDetails.messageText; the
TASK 41 body omitted it, and the Good Dog test asserted only liveChatId +
messageText were present — false-green while real YouTube rejected every
send. Fix body + assert type in the same test so the field can never drop
silently again.
Reference: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveChatMessages/insert
Good Dog: ONE integration test (strengthened TestStream_DockTooling...).
Gate: clean build 0 warnings; full vstest 317/318 (the 1 failure is the
known environmental RealMouseDrag flake — passes 3/3 in isolation).
The open creator report ('I still cannot post a chat message in the TEST tab',
feedback 'Chat polling couldn't start — Mock Chat Input is disabled') was a single
cause: the liveChatId never resolved. Two YouTube API facts:
1. The id lives in snippet.liveChatId — contentDetails has no such property
(TASK 44 read part=contentDetails: could never resolve).
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveBroadcasts
2. It only exists once the broadcast is LIVE — the official sample lists
broadcastStatus=active, and our fetch ran before the frame pump pushed RTMP
(enableAutoStart flips ready→live). A ready-state list legitimately returns
no id.
https://github.com/youtube/api-samples/blob/master/java/src/main/java/com/google/api/services/samples/youtube/cmdline/live/GetLiveChatId.java
Fix: GetBroadcastLiveChatIdAsync reads part=snippet and polls with a bounded
retry (10x/2s); PrepareAndStartLiveAsync starts the frame pump FIRST, then
resolves the id. Chat stays non-fatal. Docs ai.md/TASKS.md/HANDOFF.md +
MyMistakes recipe updated same commit. TASK 44.
Good Dog: ONE integration test (GetBroadcastLiveChatIdAsync_Polls_Snippet_...
) drives a broadcast that gains its id mid-retry and asserts every request used
part=snippet. Gate: clean build 0 warnings, vstest 318/318.
startup.log 2026-09-22 (user runs of the new build): ALL THREE session stops
logged 'Broadcast transition(complete) failed (403) invalidTransition → End
close-out: enableAutoStop will finish'. The old ai.md assumption ('invalidTransition
when autoStop already fired') was wrong — the blind complete POST races
YouTube/autoStop marking the broadcast complete (enableAutoStop=true is always
set, tests included), so a blind POST earned only the 403 + log noise. Per the
transition errors table, invalidTransition is a current-status problem and
complete is not gated on streamStatus (only testing/live are):
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveBroadcasts/transition
Fix: EndBroadcastAsync pre-flights liveBroadcasts.list -> status.lifeCycleStatus
and skips the POST when the broadcast is already complete/revoked; an inconclusive
pre-check still posts (old behavior) rather than silently stranding a live
broadcast; still never throws (enableAutoStop finishes every skip).
Good Dog: EndBroadcast test rewritten to the one contract — live -> GET pre-check
+ POST transition (URL shape asserted); already complete -> zero transition POSTs;
inconclusive pre-check + 403 POST -> error string, never a throw. Full suite
315/315 (one-run audio/mouse timing flakes cleared), build 0 warnings.
Recipe recorded in MyMistakes.md; ai.md / Services index / TASK-9 note corrected.
startup.log 2026-09-22 (via the user's run of the new build): every session
start logged 'Stream health poll failed: The requested operation requires an
element of type String, but the target element has type Object'.
Root cause: GetStreamHealthAsync did status.healthStatus.GetString(), but the
real API nests it as status.healthStatus = {status, lastUpdateTimeSeconds,
configurationIssues[]} — an OBJECT, per the liveStreams reference
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveStreams (checked the
docs before fixing, per derivative-work rule). Our flat-string fixture was the
wrong assumption since TASK 9; the report-by-exception health banner had been
silently dead.
Fix: read the nested healthStatus.status + nested configurationIssues[], tolerating
the legacy flat-string shape so nothing else breaks. Tests flipped to the real
object shape (the Good Dog for this change). Full suite 315/315, build 0 warnings.
Also recorded in MyMistakes.md (API-shape recipe) and ai.md/Services index. End-of-session
transition(complete) 403 invalidTransition (enableAutoStop fallback) observed on all three
2026-09-22 stops — separate racy-design issue, carried, not in this change.
Test button next to Start runs the real private-only go-live pipeline as a
session variant (IsTestStream): BeginTestStream -> extracted
StartStreamingSession(alsoRecord:false) shared with the dialog path — no Go
Live dialog, no 'last live' stamp, no recording. Gold top bar + TEST badge +
'End Test' button face; TEST drawer (third right-rail pull-out, three-way
exclusivity) auto-opens once the liveChatId resolves.
Chat tooling: Mock Chat Input sends a REAL liveChat/messages.insert
(YouTubeStreamService.InsertChatMessageAsync) that round-trips the real ~2s
poll and renders through the live overlay; simulated Subscriber/New
Member/Super Chat events inject through the poller's MessageReceived seam
(YouTubeChatService.InjectSimulatedMessage, ChatMessage.IsSimulated) — the
insert API only creates textMessageEvent, so non-text events are local-only
by design (ref: developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveChatMessages/insert).
Scopes youtube + youtube.force-ssl already cover insert; no re-consent.
Good Dog: ytLive.Tests/TestStreamTests.cs — coordinator protocol with fake
HTTP + real-window drawer exclusivity/gate. 0 warnings; 314/314 pass (clean
run; intermittent host abort is the pre-existing WinRT-webcam flake).
Docs ride in the same change: TASKS.md row 41, TASKS/task-41-test-stream-mode.md,
ai.md (YouTube Live API constraints), HANDOFF rewrite.
The specced 'End stream -> transition(complete)' call never existed: stopping relied
entirely on enableAutoStop (viewers sat on a frozen stream-offline for ~a minute, VOD
finalized late). Found during the 2026-09-01 recording-verification pass while the
creator asked 'if there's proper close-out info yt needs, we'll provide it?'
EndBroadcastAsync POSTs liveBroadcasts/transition?broadcastStatus=complete&id=..&part=status,
called after the pump stops (RTMP EOF first) and only when a live session had a broadcast —
record-only stops stay offline. invalidTransition/410 (autoStop already ended it) is logged
and returned as an error string, never thrown: a stop must never fail over close-out.
ONE integration test (URL shape + never-throws on 403). ai.md/TASKS.md design lines marked
SHIPPED with the map-lie note.
Ref: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveBroadcasts/transition
- YouTubeStreamService: added GetBroadcastLiveChatIdAsync to fetch liveChatId from broadcast contentDetails
- YouTubeChatService.Poll(): parse snippet.type to handle textMessageEvent, superChatEvent, newSponsorEvent
- MainViewModel: wire _youtubeChat.Start(liveChatId) in PrepareAndStartLiveAsync after broadcast creation
- MainViewModel: wire _youtubeChat.Stop() in StopStream before encoder stop
- MainViewModel: wire _youtubeChat.Dispose() in Shutdown
- MainWindow.xaml: updated chat DataTemplate with member badge (⭐), Super Chat highlight (💰 + gold border), timestamps (HH:mm)
- MainWindow.xaml.cs: auto-scroll ChatListBox on new messages via CollectionChanged
- Chat lifecycle is non-fatal: failures log and the stream continues without on-panel chat
gramps