genlayer up --headless stalls indefinitely at Checking CLI version... #418

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1. HusseinAdeiza commented on Sep 27, 2026

   

   HusseinAdeiza

   on Sep 27, 2026

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   I'd like to work on this.

   I reproduced it end to end on v0.40-dev. The stall is in the very first step, before Docker is ever consulted: up calls checkCliVersion() (src/commands/general/start.ts:28, and init at src/commands/general/init.ts:57), which awaits update-check. That helper does an unauthenticated HTTPS GET to the npm registry and the call site has no try/catch and no deadline, so any registry trouble takes down the whole command:

   $ node dist/index.js up --headless
   - Checking CLI version...
   TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'code')
       at getMostRecent (node_modules/update-check/index.js:125:11)
       at async SimulatorService.checkCliVersion (dist/index.js:59025:20)
       at async StartAction.execute (dist/index.js:59385:5)
   

   Failing modes I confirmed against update-check@1.5.4:

   condition	result
   registry unreachable / blackholed	rejects after ~2s, TypeError on err.code
   registry returns 5xx	Error: Request failed with code 500
   proxy returns HTML with 200	SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<'
   empty cache file from an interrupted run	SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input
   healthy registry (control)	resolves in ~40ms, no warning printed

   There is a second, separate effect: when the request times out, update-check calls reject() without destroying the socket, so the event loop never drains. The promise settles but the process stays alive and idle, which matches the reported symptom more closely than the crash above.

   A cosmetic "a new version is available" warning should never be able to block or abort up. My plan is to make checkCliVersion() best-effort: bound it with a short timeout, swallow registry errors, and keep the warning when the check does succeed. I'll add regression tests for each row in that table and run pre-commit run --all-files plus the full suite.

   Assigning to myself unless someone else is already on it.
2. HusseinAdeiza commented on Sep 27, 2026

   

   HusseinAdeiza

   on Sep 27, 2026

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   PR opened: #422 (targets v0.40-dev, per the branch model in CONTRIBUTING.md).

   Summary of the change: checkCliVersion() now races the registry request against a 2s deadline and swallows rejections, so the upgrade notice can no longer abort or stall up/init. Six regression tests cover the failure modes I measured (blackholed registry, 5xx, HTML-from-proxy with 200, truncated cache file, never-responding registry) plus a control that the warning still prints.

   The commit is SSH-signed with HusseinAdeiza@users.noreply.github.com. Leaving this here rather than closing the issue, since the root cause of the socket leak and the err.code access lives upstream in update-check.