Sylpheed/docs/re/REFUTED.md

Refuted — claims that were tested and died

Read this before proposing a hypothesis. Every line below was believed at some point, measured, and found false. Reviving one costs a whole iteration and produces nothing.

This file exists because the list had been living in the autonomous agent's loop prompt — the only copy, lost the moment the container was. A refuted result is a real result; it belongs in the corpus like any other.

Format: each entry is the claim as it was believed. Where the true answer is known it follows after →. Grouped by subject so a grep for your noun finds the neighbourhood, not just the line.

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Offsets, structs and the progress singleton

• position = instance − 0x12c → refuted.
• +0x29d0 → refuted.
• "an offset intersection can find a struct's consumer" → only for LARGE or unusual offsets. Small ones have no power (+184: 301/351/115 hits).
• "a +1956 store means a progress write" → writes go through the COPY, not direct stores. 9 direct stores, none of them a progress write.
• "the singleton-global filter can find progress writers" → it fails its own control.
• "the progress copy destination is an r1-relative stack local" → it is a frame register. The r1 assumption returned 0 for all 21 candidates including the known-good — the filter was killed by its own control.
• "word B's writer also stores the Time/Points record" → it does not.
• "the debriefing records the metric with the clear bit" → 44 calls, exactly two strings (DEBRIEFING, BASE_INFO), no Time, no Points.
• "0x820AF030 holds live state" → all 384 words constant; it is a spawned-entity record, not live state.

Screens, classes and RTTI

• "the rotated draw in the title's capture is the Z swoosh (ptlogo_back2*)" → mine, and refuted. Its quads span y −209…925 and −292…1012 in screen space; the swoosh is a band at y 126…360. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the keyframe words at +4/+8/+12 are always zero" → they are non-zero in 4.76 %, 4.62 % and 14.50 % of 83 862 blocks disc-wide, reading as degrees (±180, ±90, 120, 360). The original note was a sample artefact. (Superseded figures: an earlier count of 72 287 blocks missed every nested record — see the alignment entry below.)
• "those angle fields are where the title's rotated quads come from" → no — every GP_TITLE build 4 element has all three at zero. → that refutation was itself wrong, and is withdrawn (2026-08-28). +12 is exactly where they come from. Build 4's top-level elements do all read zero; the rotated quads belong to its two nested leaf records, ptloop01.rat (+12 = 30) and ptloop02.rat (+12 = −45), which the census never opened. Measured off the GPU: +30.26° and −45.28°. ui-keyframe-rotation.md
• "the rotated draw's element cannot be named from the capture" → refuted; its quads' edge lengths name it. 400 × 1076 and 400 × 1444 match pteff03 399×180 at 600 % and pteff03a 399×180 at 800 % — two different heights, both landing. ui-keyframe-rotation.md
• "a keyframe-block scanner may assume 4-byte alignment" → refuted; it found 0/3 of its own control blocks and under-counted the corpus by 16 341 blocks. Nested RATC blobs start at odd offsets (0xbb5966).
• "keyframe rotation lives only in nested .rat leaf records" → mine, and refuted within the hour by my own sweep. It held for the three archives I had checked (GP_TITLE, GP_BUNK, GP_CHALLENGE) and failed on the next: GP_DIALOG and GP_DEBRIEFING_PILOTLOG rotate top-level elements, and those are the clearest examples on the disc. ui-keyframe-rotation.md
• "the pivot-anchored scale formula kf.x − pivot·(scale−100)/100 is our renderer's reading, not a measurement" → now measured. At the ptloop pair's 600 %/800 % scale it predicts both quad centres at y = 360.0 against a captured 359.1/360.0, where top-left anchoring predicts 810/990. ui-keyframe-rotation.md
• "the game passes a pink per-vertex colour for the title swoosh" → refuted by draw capture. Every vertex colour in the capture is <alpha>FFFFFF, white RGB.
• "the swoosh discrepancy is undecodable" → solved: the game submits it as two rotated parallelograms; ui_layout::blit only does axis-aligned rectangles. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the --log_ui_draws per-draw capture reads the guest's blend state" → mine, and wrong. It records primitive type, index count, index-buffer address, VS/PS ucode hashes, texture bindings and vertex attribute 0 — no RB_BLENDCONTROL. It can test vertex colour as-is; blend state needs a Canary change. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the plate-free title capture (t ≈ 4.0 s) may be too early to be settled" → mine, and refuted. The swoosh band correlates 0.7342 at t = 4.0 s and 0.7353 at t = 21.5 s — identical to 0.001 over 17.5 s.
• "T8aD +0x04 bit 0x02 selects an additive blend" → mine, and refuted. Blending those sprites additively worsens every measure against the capture. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the title logo elements' wrong pivots (off by up to 59 px, authored against the other language's sprite) explain the swoosh rendering too thick" → mine, and refuted. blit sizes from the texture and applies the pivot only as pivot·(scale−100)/100; all seven swoosh elements are scale (100,100) at every keyframe, so the term is zero. The mismatch is real but inert here — it would bite ptlogo1/ptlogo2, which scale to 150 during the build-in. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the title screen loops at ≈ 2.2 s" → mine, and doubly wrong. The title art is near-static (wordmark sd 0.06); the 2.3 s pulse is the PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON plate, which is a different build (2, not 4). Localised by a per-tile amplitude map and decoded in ptbtn00f.rat. ui-title-build-map.md
• "a .rat leaf record's keyframes use the build's 40-byte layout" → they do not — withdrawn. They do. The scan that "found nothing" required 29 increasing times; the records hold three. Decoded in ui-title-build-map.md.
• "the title's measured ≈ 2.2 s oscillation is the ptloop01/ptloop02 elements" → mine, and refuted by decoding them. Their sweeps run 7.5 s and 9.5 s; a 22 s capture showed 8 peaks, not 3. The period's source is unidentified.
• "the developer splash cannot be rendered by screen render at all" → it can, with --all. It is only invisible to the default listing, which filters on is_build. ui-title-build-map.md
• "the four GP_TITLE entries that are not screen builds are unidentified" → they are the splash: 10/13 the SQUARE ENIX logo, 11/14 the developer logos.
• "the boot title is phase 2 and the attract title is phase 4 state 0, and only phase 2 handles Ⓐ" → refuted — the REFUTATION is withdrawn. The test assumed Ⓑ lands in phase 4 state 0; the event-0 block actually sets phase = 2 and state = 0 together, so it probed phase 2. The hypothesis is untested, not dead. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "any title after the first one refuses input" → too broad. The Ⓑ-returned title accepts Ⓐ; only the attract-returned title is inert. canary-scripted-input-traps.md
• "sub_821C6458 is GamePart_Title's state machine" → mine, imprecise. It is the machine for phase 4 of a five-way outer dispatch at this+132; phase 0 is the splash. The ten states and eighteen edges are phase 4 only. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "sub_821CC860 is the game's by-name screen factory" → mine, and wrong. Its decoded arguments include BG, BLACK, FADE, FILE, KEY, PAD, SOUND, GAMMA_RGB — it is a generic name-keyed lookup, mostly config.
• "DIFFICULTY and EXTRA_MENU are corroborated screen names" → mine, and wrong. Neither appears in r5 at any of the 48 call sites; they were strings merely referenced by the same functions. Only TUTORIAL_MENU survives. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "the {func, func, ptr} triples at 0x820a3b48 are a GamePart state table" → static-initialiser records trailing the RegisterToFactory strings. The bytes before them are the tail of a diagnostic string and the data column is zero-filled descriptors. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "the boot sequence is driven by a table the game reads" → it is not data-driven; four search spaces closed, transitions are calls with an id argument. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "config.ini is a GamePart settings table, so the boot order is in it" → its [SYSTEM] section is empty; the only populated section is [LANGUAGE]. boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md
• "the attract loop is GP_ADVERTISE_DEMO (GamePart 1)" → 🟡 id 1 has no registration site in the shipped build; the attract is the title replaying ADV.wmv.
• "the 29 id-table names are 29 distinct GameParts" → 24 register, and 3/4 are the same class (GamePart_SaveLoad).
• "Ⓐ on NEW GAME leads to a standing black-screen hang" → it opens DIFFICULTY, then SELECT DATA. What looked like a hang was a menu waiting for input that nobody pressed; the crash that follows is the already documented sub_823070B0 cache throw. menu-navigation-semantics.md
• "tapping Ⓐ during the boot movie breaks the title" → one tap skips the movie cleanly and the title works normally. It is hammering (88 presses) that breaks it. movie-binding.md
• "the attract movie runs ~85 s, so it is not ADV.wmv (137 s)" → mine, and wrong. Sampling began 39 s into the movie, so what was timed was its tail. The attract movie is ADV.wmv, played in full. movie-binding.md
• "the boot intro and the attract movie are different videos" → one asset, one manifest slot (ADVERTISE_MOVIE).
• "the new-game intro is unidentified" → MS00A → S00A.wmv, decoded from the movie manifest.
• "GP_READY_ROOM.pak holds the Ready Room screen" → its 317 distinct element names contain none of the six visible labels; it is the briefing / tactical-map content behind the BRIEFINGS item. ready-room-probe.md
• "the Ready Room might be 3D with a UI overlay" → it is 2D; the pak carries zero 3D containers.
• "element kind 0x3002 is the button kind" → title-side only. All 902 GP_READY_ROOM bundles have zero 0x3002; that pak uses 0x3000, 0x3004, 0x300c, 0x3008. 0x3002 is one member of a 0x3000 family.
• "the transition between menu screens is a cut" → it is a fade through black; a 0.5 Hz screenshot burst simply samples too slowly to see it. screen-transitions.md
• "the main menu's initial focus is fixed" → three boots of one script gave TUTORIAL, TUTORIAL, NEW GAME.
• "the title menus drop d-pad presses shorter than ~0.3 s" → refuted by my own data. The menu wraps at both ends; every press registered, and the "missing" step was the wrap. See menu-navigation-semantics.md.
• "the main menu opens with NEW GAME focused" → it opens on TUTORIAL, 2/2 boots (🟡 a third recorded run implies NEW GAME, so this is reproducible, not invariant).
• "GP_TITLE builds 6/8/9 are three submenus" → 8 is the JAPANESE main menu, and 6/9 are the English and Japanese EXTRAS submenu. GP_TITLE holds eight screens shipped twice (EN/JP), and exactly one submenu. See ui-title-build-map.md.
• "the PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON plate is a state of the title build" → it is its own build (2/3), composited over build 4 and faded in a beat later.
• "the RTTI route can name the anonymous classes" → 1 150 vtables: 1 150 ANON_, 0 rtti_present, 0 base classes.
• "the sibling vtable methods name the class" → they cannot.
• "xrefs can name the callers of a vtable method" → no.
• "the ind_call refutation voids existing corpus claims" → damage bounded, 4/4 caller claims verify. But xrefs.ind_call is a CROSS PRODUCT — always filter kind='call'.
• "BASE_INFO marks the 5-slot screen family" → it discriminates screen-config from table-read, 9/9 vs 10/10.
• "a high key count means a rich screen" → sub_82297550 / sub_822A2F00's 27 "keys" are coordinate pairs, i.e. a layout table.
• "EX_ = the CHALLENGE-mission debriefing" → EX_ is EXTRA, mission-kind 3.
• "the EX_ selection has not been shown" → it has: [[obj+4]+184] == 3.

Stages, missions and the challenge set

• "the disc's stages are numbered 1..28" → S01–S16 story, S17 cut, S18–S23 tutorials, S24–S29 challenge.
• "S24–S29 are story missions" → they are the challenge missions.
• "the challenge missions have their own maps" → they reuse GP_MAIN_GAME_E.pak's stage records.
• "the challenge REQUIREMENT values are 16,25,26,27,29" → the chain is 16→24→25→26→27→28.
• "the Extra0n family shares one leaderboard metric" → RECORD_TYPE is per-stage: 3 Time / 3 Points.
• "stage = filled SHAB count + 1" → refuted.
• "the first TRIGGER is always the point of no return" → refuted.
• "EnumUnit_S14.tbl might be missing" / "S14's 13 are a manifest omission" / "asteroids are exempt from the manifest" → S14's 13 are dangling deployments. NEEDS-HUMAN: fly S14.
• "StageMessageSet_S02.tbl is not in the pak" → it is.
• "S28_p1 has an asteroid volume with no definition" → refuted.
• "test_s8p1_asteroid.tbl is test-only" → refuted.
• "the settings family has 28 or 29 objects" → 24.

ISL / mission scripting

• "the bytecode is in the .embsec_ sections" → refuted.
• "only 31 built-ins take a unit" → refuted.
• "sub_8230C398 is the message pump" → refuted.
• "bus+8216 is the subscriber registry" → refuted.
• "the ScriptPhase vtable is ≥200 slots" → 113.

IDXD, paks and naming

• "IDXD record keys are name_hash" → record keys are tag_hash (case-SENSITIVE); name_hash is case-INSENSITIVE and used for pak keys.
• "pak TOC order is stage order" / "TOC order is semantic order" → it is not.
• "the executable holds the asset names" → the image names no data value at all; that route is powerless.
• "the image might name a data VALUE" → powerless.
• "the XPR2 manifest names hash to the DefTables tables" → refuted.
• "the DefTables model names are unreachable" → reachable via the Enumerate declaration tables (1 413/1 425, 99.2 %).
• "the GP_MAIN_GAME_* unnamed block is undiscovered data" → refuted.
• "each GP_MAIN_GAME_* Enumerate object declares something" → refuted.
• "GP_HANGAR_ARSENAL is missing data tables" → refuted.
• "the Enumeration self-index can name objects" → a self-index names records, not files.
• "a per-pak prefix might close the 2D blocker" → no.
• "the + paths might name the 2D or GP_READY_ROOM keys" → the +-dictionary route is exhausted, 0 of 1 817.
• "the game:\ paths are unresolved" → refuted.
• "a set-difference over file names can see reuse" → it cannot; join per USER. Per-pak copies are ×6.

Audio

• "which bank the menu plays is not on the disc" → the cue table cannot say (all BGM cues are numeric), but the code can: sub_821C5580 plays cue 1103 = BGM_103, and its two declared waves match the two streams the XMA probe saw byte-for-byte.

• "the observed BGM stream sizes match no bank's declared waves, so the game hands the decoder a window" → mine, and wrong — I checked only the BGM_0xx rows. They are BGM_103's two waves exactly; the game hands over the whole wave.

• "an individual SE cue's audio cannot be extracted" → mine, and wrong. --xma_param_probe=true logs each stream's head bytes; searching them in Static.slb locates the wave exactly. menu-audio-cues.md

• "Static.slb has no wave boundaries, so its layout is unknown" → it is a packed run of whole 2 048-byte XMA packets with no delimiters — the two located cues are contiguous. There is nothing to scan for, by design.

• "Pj_Silph.xgs holds the cue→wave index, so parse XACT" → no XACT container exists on this disc: 0 × XGSF/SDBK/WBND in all 1.08 GB of sound.pak, and no XACT/.xgs string in the executable. The extensions are the authoring tool's, not the format's. menu-audio-cues.md

• "every sound cue resolves to its own .slb bank" → the 322 SE_* cues do not; 0 of 322 are in FILES, and BANK_SE puts them all in Static.slb.

• "Static.slb can be split into waves like any other bank" → it holds 0 RIFF, 0 seek, 0 WAVE across all 8 353 472 readable bytes. menu-audio-cues.md

• "BGM_001.slb is three sub-waves (10 KB + 4.47 MB + 4.67 MB)" → the 10 KB is the bank header; a bank is two waves.

• "a music bank's two waves might be intro + loop, two variations, or two halves" → they are two stems of one performance, played together — equal duration in 32/32 banks, and sample-synchronous. structures/bgm-two-stems.md

• "BGM_106–BGM_109 break the two-wave rule" → they are the leading-region straddle; realigned across entry boundaries they obey it.

• "the cue table names which BGM belongs to which screen" → all 32 BGM cues are numeric (BGM_001…BGM_109).

Units, weapons, effects and assets

• "Generic (394) is the unit datasheet" → refuted.
• "a loadout's Arm1 names an item" → it names a hardpoint slot (Turret_NNN), 59/59.
• "EnumUnit and the unit datasheet share a vocabulary" → they do not.
• "the roster is the Generic.Model set" → roster 40, Generic.Model 46, GameResourceID 480 — three vocabularies.
• "every unit ID is UN_<l>###_<FACTION>_<name>" → the grammar is UN_<letter>###_[<subkind>_]<FACTION>_<name>.
• "_EXn is the Extra0n index" → three different EX vocabularies exist.
• "the only two _EX5 names on the disc are the AA gun and the DeltaSaber" → refuted.
• "running the tutorial will instantiate the _Ttrl weapons" → refuted.
• "the disc has exactly three EnumWeapon tables" → four.
• "the wep_NN package gaps are unshipped weapons" / "wep_85 is the tip of a family" → wep_85 is the only declared-but-unshipped asset (59/0/1/26).
• "nothing is deployed without being declared" → refuted.
• "effects are one namespace" → refuted.
• "the 58 undeclared effect names are missing assets" → refuted.
• "all five orphan effects are unshipped" → refuted.
• "eff_f0002 ships in Base.xpr" → refuted.
• "Base.xpr holds more bound effects than ptc_pack" → refuted.
• "the 34 unlocated are a scatter" → refuted.
• "the 9 unlocated might be under another prefix" → refuted.
• "ptc_pack has 532 names" → 727.
• "the _e/_f law is effect-FIELD-specific" → it is the faction law, 564/564.
• "a disc-wide .xpr byte search can show an effect is ABSENT" → it cannot.
• "rot_n001 is on the disc" → refuted.
• "rou_f004's mesh is in Stage_S28.xpr" → it is in DeltaSaber_A.xpr.
• "parent + _all + _child is the composite-model convention" → refuted. _hangar is real (59 of 166, 59/59 with a bare twin); _all/_child is not.
• "Motion_guard_start has no damage variants" → refuted.
• "CoverArea bits 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive" → refuted.
• "the 27 unresolved NamePlate values are missing objects" → refuted.

LOD, background and misc tables

• "EnumLODSet_* is a per-stage family" → EnumLODSet_test.tbl serves 17 stages; 17+5+1 = 23.
• "there are 8 orphan LOD tables" → 6.
• "the orphans are stale copies of _test" → refuted.
• "S25 is absent from the DefTables LOD families" → refuted.
• "BackGroundID has no referent anywhere" → it is an identity.
• "BackGroundPackage == BG_<id>.xpr" → refuted.
• "<X>ID + <X>Package is a convention" → refuted.
• "Placement_* / RouteTest_* are unattached" → refuted.
• "the AsteroidDefinition join does not reproduce by hash" → it does.
• "the 8-value frame is a new finding" → it was already in the corpus.

Loaders, config and tuning

• "the config reader is XML" → INI.
• "sub_822F9498 is the unit-definition loader" → it is PlayerParams's.
• "sub_822AE628 reads the main-game Tweak" → refuted.
• "sub_8230D1F8 is a rank table" → it is the stage-settings loader.
• "sub_82286BC8's key list is new" → refuted.
• "sub_825F2CF0 / sub_825F2F88 read a post-processing table" → refuted.
• "Booster is a new schema" / "Booster is the player craft's flight envelope" → refuted; nothing selects Booster.
• "the AnalogRevice/Tweak block is unreachable" → reachable (sub_821A6CF0, base 0x820A1630).
• "a 0-xref string block has no reader" → refuted.
• "the AI table was NEEDS-HUMAN" → refuted.
• "the PG* HUD names are undocumented" → they are documented.
• "a base-solver row identifies a FUNCTION" → it does not.
• "a 64K-boundary base is low confidence" → inverted; it is high confidence.
• "the 0x820B0000 cluster is a false positive" → refuted.
• "a pointer to a function in the image implies a registry" → refuted. .pdata is not a registry.
• "the 13 player-facing chatter tables are the WINGMAN tables" → refuted.
• "the 8 undeclared chatter tables are tutorial chatter" → refuted.
• "other datasheets ship a schema too" → refuted.

Encoding and text

• "every IDXD string value is ASCII" → 6 non-ASCII values of 99 328.
• "文字列 is a dev placeholder" → they are Shift-JIS type words.
• "the splash _eff glows hold a constant α ≈ 33, contradicting their declared 255 plateau" → mine, and refuted within the iteration. They ramp 34 → 255 in exact steps of 34. I had printed the series' minimum and read it as its range. ui-keyframe-time-unit.md
• "the declared keyframe timeline reproduces the captured splash" → refuted for multi-keyframe elements. palogo_gamearts is still at a=255 nine frames after its declared a=32, and its declared 80-frame fade-in is never drawn. The _eff glows do reproduce, exactly — so this is about the group timeline, not about the interpolation law. ui-keyframe-time-unit.md
• "the _eff elements' agreement is the whole case for the keyframe-time shift, so it stays a shape argument" → superseded. The hold duration is calibration-free and decides it: observed 83 frames of full alpha against a predicted 2.0 as decoded and 80.0 shifted. The shift is nonetheless not adopted — it moves GP_TITLE build 7 by 13 % of pixels, away from its verified English twin's brightness. ui-keyframe-time-unit.md
• "the GP_TITLE build 7 render difference is evidence against the keyframe-time shift" → mine, and withdrawn. It is one element, ptlogo_eff3.t32, a transient bloom with no resting pose; rest()'s dwell fallback returns a different endpoint of the same movement under each reading. The brightness comparison measured our heuristic, not the decode. structures/ui-resting-pose.md
• "rest()'s longest-dwell fallback picks the pose the element rests at" → refuted structurally. A dwell gap is time spent interpolating between poses; an endpoint is only held when the two poses are equal, which is a plateau, which the earlier path already returned for. Every element that reaches the fallback has a guessed rest pose.
• "rest() for a plateau-less element should be the last keyframe" → mine, and refuted. The developer splash's three sibling glows are structurally identical and differ by one byte (a=212 vs a=255 at t=45); that rule makes palogo_anima_eff alone invisible while gamearts_eff and seta_eff stay lit. Capture box-mean ratios (0.717 / 0.723 / 0.772) go the other way too. structures/ui-resting-pose.md
• "a keyframe scale of 0 means unset, so render at 100 %" → refuted by a disc-wide control. 2 166 elements have a zero-scale keyframe and not one is zero on every keyframe, while 1 762 grow back out of zero (ptlogo_eff3.t32 runs 0 % → 200 %). Zero means collapsed; the renderer now draws nothing. structures/ui-rat-layout.md
• "a Japanese-locale capture is impossible in this container, because canary has no user_language cvar" → mine, and refuted the next iteration. The cvar really is absent, but the language is persisted in <storage_root>/xconfig.settings (user.language, BE u32 at file offset 0x912, located from three struct landmarks) and that file is writable. The capture is still not taken — a Japanese run never reached the title in 787 s — but it needs a longer run, not a rebuilt emulator. tools/re-capture/set_console_language.py
• "the Japanese-locale run never reached the title in 787 s" → the measurement was broken, not the run. wait_title.sh carried the superseded single-pixel oracle. Re-run with is_title.py: the game still did not present the interactive title, but that is now a measured statement (zero green-glyph pixels, correlation ≤ 0.22 to either build-7 render) rather than an artefact.
• "the Japanese-locale run fails to reach the interactive title because of the locale" → refuted by the English control. 75 samples over 734 s with the same flags and oracle, every one glyph = 0. Neither locale presents the interactive title without a pad press.
• "neither locale reaches the interactive title without a pad press" / "the game sat in the attract loop for 604 s" → withdrawn as causes. Both rest on runs whose polling loop sampled every ~41 s, because screenshot costs 10.8 s while the emulator runs (0.117 s idle, 92×). A title lasting a few seconds would be missed. The observations stand; the conclusions drawn from them do not. capture-harness-status.md