Bridge and connector troubleshooting
Français · Troubleshooting · Published, reviewed by a person · Applies from: 4.1.20
What a Reality Bridge's error codes mean, and what to do about them. The Bridge is the server that carries signals from the real world (an email, a badge, a terminal) to a player's game; its connectors send those signals. This page covers the Bridge's own answers, not the hosted Studio's, which has codes of the same numbers.
Audience, context, and the statuses of what this page rests on
Audience: admin · Context: Reality Bridge
The Reality Bridge,
localprofile (SQLite) · contract: stable · verified by CI (support matrix of 4.4.0, 2026-10-23): Node 22.13+ with node:sqlite, on Ubuntu; Chromium and WebKit end to end · automated checks: jobsreality,reality-xcheck; CI planreality; 2 test files · people's passes: none · known limits: none listed on this pageThe Reality Bridge,
distributedprofile (Postgres) · contract: experimental · verified by CI (support matrix of 4.4.0, 2026-10-23): Postgres 16 in CI; The qualification profile: HTTPS, three instances (ops/qualify/) · automated checks: jobsbridge-postgres,deployment-smoke; CI planreality; 1 test file · people's passes:bridge-postgres-httpsnot run (#77) · known limits: none listed on this pageThe connectors (email, Telnet, SSH, Open Badges) · contract: experimental · verified by CI (support matrix of 4.4.0, 2026-10-23): Node 22 on Ubuntu (Telnet and SSH not on Windows) · automated checks: jobs
connectors,connector-archive-e2e; CI planreality; 3 test files · people's passes:connectors-real-securitynot run (#79) · known limits: none listed on this page
The Bridge answers 409
A Bridge's 409 means "this was already done", never "your copy is stale":
{"error": "pairing", "message": "already confirmed"}onPOST /v1/pairings/<code>/confirm: the pairing code was confirmed already, by this connector or another one. Two connectors confirming one code at once: one wins, the other gets this 409. The player is paired; nothing to redo.{"error": "duplicate", …"this run was submitted already (the first submitter keeps it)"}onPOST /v1/runs: the same speedrun run was sent twice, and the second is refused as it would join the queue. The first submission keeps its place in the queue; it is ranked only once the speedrun worker finds it valid.{"error": "trust", …"only a run the worker found valid can be moderated"}: a moderator tried to verify a run the speedrun worker did not find valid.
None of them loses data: the first action stands. To check it, read the Bridge's log (JSON lines on its standard
output): "event":"pairing.confirmed" with the playerId for the pairing, "event":"run.submitted" (then
run.verified) for the run. The Bridge has no operator route that reads a pairing's state. Never call
GET /v1/pairings/<code> to check one: that is the player's one-time claim, and calling it hands out, and uses up, the
player's capability.
The Bridge answers 503
{"error": "busy", "message": "the store is busy: try again in a second"}, withRetry-After: 1: another process held the store's write lock longer than the request could wait (SQLite). Nothing was written; send it again.GET /readyzanswers 503{"status": "unavailable"}: the store does not answer. Look at the database first.- From 4.1.20, a Bridge whose maintenance lease is lost (not renewed, or the database connection that holds its lock
dropped) holds its writes, which answer 503, and fails
/readyzuntil it takes a lease again (its log linemaintenance.lease.lostsays why).
The same event arrived twice
A connector may send the same signal twice (a retry after a timeout, a restart). The Bridge accepts it once: POST /v1/signals answers 202 the first time, and 200 with duplicate for a dedupeKey it already accepted. The player's
save keeps the sequence of signals it applied, so a signal is never applied twice in the game.
A connector is down
- The game plays on: a player offline, or without a signal, keeps playing; what arrives later is applied when it arrives.
- A connector started with a
healthport answersGET /healthwith 200 when it is well, 503 otherwise, with adetail;GET /metricson the same port gives its counters. - An email connector leaves a message unseen when the Bridge refused it for a reason that may pass (the Bridge away or busy, a quota): it is read again at the next poll. A message refused for good is marked seen and flagged, for you to look at. Over a quota the Bridge answers 429: the connector sees it, nothing is dropped in silence.