Syplheed-Reborn/docs/re/BACKLOG.md

# RE backlog

Open items that are *not* being worked right now. Each entry says what is wrong or
unknown, what evidence exists, and what the first step would be. Move an item into
`INDEX.md` (with a `structures/…md` or a parser + test) once it is actually settled.

---

## ✅ SOLVED (2026-08-19) — the paint order is a runtime child list, not a table in the file

The screen object the game builds at load time holds **two** lists of its
elements: the declaration-ordered array at `+0x08`, and a **reordered child array
at `+0x30`** — and the second is the paint order. Read live off the title screen
and checked against the draw capture: the seven nameable elements sit at child
slots 0, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17, 22, strictly ascending, in exactly the captured order.
See [`structures/ui-screen-runtime.md`](structures/ui-screen-runtime.md).

**Landed rather than left open** (2026-08-19): the compositor now paints in the
**measured** order for the two builds that have been read off the running game
(the title build and the GAME ARTS/SETA/anima splash) and falls back to
declaration order elsewhere. Rendering that exposed a second defect the same
capture settles — `kind = 0x4` elements are motion-trail ghosts, absent at rest —
and the title now composites correctly
([`captures/title-composited-measured-order.png`](captures/title-composited-measured-order.png)).
Disc-gated test, checked both ways. The Bevy viewer's UI Screens browser calls
the same `ui_layout::compose`, so the fix reaches what a person actually looks at
rather than only the CLI's `screen render` — checked in `iso_loader.rs`
(`compose_screen`), which also keeps its element table in declaration order, so
the per-element visibility toggles still line up.

**Derivation found (2026-08-19)**: the order sorts by the word at **`+0x08` of
the T8aD sprite header** — non-decreasing in paint order on both measured
screens, with no inversion, and on the splash it explains the whole permutation.
See [`structures/ui-paint-order-key.md`](structures/ui-paint-order-key.md).

**Wired into the compositor (2026-08-19)** and regression-checked. `compose`
sorts by the key for every build except the two whose measured order is hard
coded. It reorders **341 of 965 builds**, and a disc-gated test asserts every
composite's draw list is strictly increasing in `(key, declaration index)`.
Against the two screens the corpus had already verified against the running game
— the tutorial PAUSE menu and the title main menu — the new order changes 3.8 %
and 1.1 % of pixels, max delta 45/255, **with no layout change**: only blends
where translucent sprites overlap.

**Still open:**

* 🟡 Which order is more faithful on those two verified screens. The difference
  is too small to decide against the committed side-by-side oracle and no fresh
  framebuffer capture of either exists. First thing to check if one is taken.
* ❔ The tie-break. Two groups share a key and the game paints them in an order
  that is not declaration order; the compositor keeps declaration order there.
* ❔ What the field's bits mean — `0x8000`/`0x80a0`/`0xa110` look like flag words
  with a layer in some bits, not a plain depth. Sorting the whole word works on
  both measured screens; which bits carry the layer is unknown.
* ❔ A third measured permutation, to promote "holds on two" to a rule. The
  cheapest is a screen whose object is resident at the same time as the title's.
* ❔ 341 builds now composite in an order no capture has checked.

## ✅ SOLVED (2026-08-19) — `_eff` glows were being dropped as focused states

`compose` skips focused-state records, and the flag matched a trailing `f` in
the name. `_eff` — this UI's word for a glow layer — ends in one. 2 458 elements
matched; **54** have the base element they would be the focused version of, and
the other 2 404 across 864 bundles are glows. Requiring the pair recovers 587 of
them in composable builds; `GP_OPTIONS` went from two floating brackets to an
actual window. The `opt ` link was tried as a replacement and **refuted** — 221
targets, 2 suffix-matches, and the targets include `pjnet_bg.rat`.
See [`structures/ui-focus-and-effect-elements.md`](structures/ui-focus-and-effect-elements.md).

## ✅ SOLVED (2026-08-19) — the developer-logo splash can be rendered

`is_build` required a `.rat` layout child; the splash has none (its elements name
their sprites directly). New `is_composable` + opt-in `--all` on the screen
commands. The splash draws 6/7 elements, glows first, in the order measured off
the running game — so the second of the two measured paint orders is now
checkable instead of merely recorded.
See [`structures/ui-composable-bundles.md`](structures/ui-composable-bundles.md).

**Opened by those two:**

* ✅ **`.prm` primitives are decoded** (2026-08-19). Untextured full-screen
  colour quads: 0 of 369 has a payload child, `kind & 0x10` ⟺ `.prm` with zero
  exceptions in either direction, 361/369 are exactly 1280×720 at 100 % in the
  corner, and the fill colour is the keyframe's `fade` ARGB — mostly black at
  some alpha, i.e. the fade-to-black / dim / flash layers.
  See [`structures/ui-prm-primitives.md`](structures/ui-prm-primitives.md).
  **Still not composited**, for the reason below.
* ✅ **`Element::rest()` fixed** (2026-08-19): the resting pose is the **hold** —
  the longest run of consecutive keyframes with an identical pose — not the
  longest gap. A keyframe is the start of a ramp toward the next one, so a long
  gap means the screen spends it *arriving at* the far end. Verified against the
  title framebuffer capture by edge correlation: plateau **0.4597 at shift
  (0,0)**, old rule 0.1511 and only after a (+3,+8) shift. Fixes six title
  elements that rested invisible and the fade quad that rested opaque black.
  See [`structures/ui-resting-pose.md`](structures/ui-resting-pose.md) and
  `tools/re-capture/align_to_capture.py`.
* ✅ **The keyframe `fade` alpha is applied** (2026-08-19). ARGB, multiplied on
  top of `tint`. Title composite vs the running-game capture: **0.4597 → 0.9538**
  edge correlation at zero shift. No-op on 4 060 of 5 200 sprite elements, hides
  687 transient HUD indicators, blanks **zero** builds. It also exposed a defect
  in the resting rule — a keyframe group carries the screen's *exit* animation
  too, and the tie-break was grabbing it, which erased the word PAUSE; a run
  ending on the last keyframe is now excluded.
  See [`structures/ui-resting-pose.md`](structures/ui-resting-pose.md).
* 🟡 **The `.prm` quads are drawn, opt-in** (2026-08-19).
  `ComposeOptions::include_primitives` / `screen render --primitives`. On the
  title — the one screen with ground truth — it takes mean luminance from **+18 %
  to −1.3 %** of the capture (76.30 → 63.72 vs 64.58) and mean abs diff 16.07 →
  13.08. Off by default because of the item below.
* 🟡 **Where a primitive paints — not in the file; measured and tabled**
  (2026-08-19). 🔴 Refuted twice over: the declaration entry's four unread words
  are **constant** (`+28`=0, `+36`=0xffffffff, `+56`=0, `+44` a button ordinal),
  and the bundle carries **no data at all** for a primitive — the menu build
  declares three and has zero RATC children for any of them. The layer comes
  from the game's code. ✅ But it is consistent: `pteff02.prm` implies a key in
  **(0x8010, 0x8040) on both** screens it appears on, `pteff00.prm` past the
  maximum on both, `palogo_eff0.prm` below the minimum. `implied_layer_key`
  records those, and `derived_paint_order` now reproduces the **layer-key
  sequence of all three measured orders**, primitives included (element-for-
  element on 4 of 5 bundle instances; the title differs only inside tied groups).
  ❔ **Still open:** primitives whose position has never been measured —
  `pzeff00.prm` and `pceff00.prm` are what wipe the 36 builds, which is why
  `include_primitives` stays off by default. A capture of any screen carrying one
  would close it.
  See [`structures/ui-prm-primitives.md`](structures/ui-prm-primitives.md).
* 🟡 **The tie-break — refuted six ways, and its cost measured** (2026-08-19).
  Elements sharing a layer key: on the **menu and splash** every tied group comes
  out in declaration order, which the stable sort already gives. The **title** is
  the only screen that discriminates and nothing predicts it (`0x8083` ×5 paints
  `eff1, eff2, eff5, eff3, eff4`). Refuted: declaration order, RATC child order,
  first keyframe time, resting time, resting X/Y, and `T8aD` header words `+00`
  `+04` `+0c` `+10`. RATC child order is a *strict improvement* (7 misplaced
  positions instead of 9, and it recovers the logo grouping) and is exact on the
  other two screens — **not adopted**, because on the one screen that can tell
  them apart it is still wrong.
  **What it costs, exactly:** of 3 disagreeing pairs of drawn elements across all
  three screens, 2 share opaque pixels — `ptlogo_back2eff5` vs `eff3` (22 568 px)
  and vs `eff4` (32 395 px). The residual is one element's blend on one screen,
  and it is pinned by a test. The third pair (`ptlogo2` vs `ptlogo_tm`) overlaps
  by bounding box but shares no opaque pixel; a box test called it a defect and
  the alpha says otherwise.
  ✅ **Fourth and fifth screens measured (2026-08-19)**, from `GP_SAVE_LOAD`,
  reachable now that the Canary threading fix makes the menu dependable. The
  9-element slot-list header is **EXACT** under the derived rule — two tied
  groups both in declaration order, unkeyed `.prm` last — and it is the first
  screen outside `GP_TITLE.pak`, so it *confirms* the rule rather than being
  fitted to it. The 13-element save/load frame differs in exactly the two known
  ways: unkeyed `pfbase.tbm` backgrounds paint **first** (now covered by
  `implied_layer_key`), and the `0xb100` group of four paints `10,11,8,12`.
  🔴 **Refuted: the tie-break is not `kind`.** "Descending kind" reproduces
  `10,11,8,12` exactly but fails both title groups. Seven candidates refuted now. 🔴 **Attempted 2026-08-19 and blocked:** advancing
  past the title is intermittent — **1 success in 3 attempts**, same binary,
  same profile, same procedure. ✅ **And now diagnosed one layer deeper:** the
  title *does* act on Ⓐ — the press spawns a slot-`(1F)` loader thread (exactly
  once per run, at the keydown, never in a run that got no press). In the
  successful boot that thread immediately reads six paths from the on-disc cache
  and the menu appears; in a failed boot it starts and issues **no file I/O
  ever**. So "the title ignores Ⓐ" is **withdrawn** — the loader stalls.
  🔴 Refuted as the cause: the cache-flush crash. All four of today's runs have
  **zero** `GUEST-THROW`, `CRASH DUMP` and `Access Violation`; the guest stays
  alive and polling.
  ✅ **And now measured to the bottom:** with kernel logging finally on
  (`LOG_MASK=12 LOG_LEVEL=3` — the scripts' `log_mask=13` had Kernel *disabled*,
  which is why no boot log ever held a kernel call), a captured failure shows the
  handler doing everything right — `XamUserGetXUID`, `NtCreateEvent`,
  `ExCreateThread(entry=0x821748F0, CREATE_SUSPENDED)`, `NtResumeThread` — and
  the thread then **never executing**: zero kernel calls of its own, and
  **`00:00:00` host CPU time** while the process runs at 546 %. A spinning thread
  burns CPU; this one never ran. A lost resume is a race, which is the first
  explanation that fits the ~1-in-3 success rate.
  ✅ **LOCATED AND FIXED** (canary `a60fe7d11`): `threading_posix.cc` publishes a
  suspended thread's `state_` and its `suspend_count_` in **two separate lock
  scopes**, and `Resume()` waits only for `state_` before testing
  `if (suspend_count_ == 0) return false`. A resumer in that gap drops the
  resume; the thread then waits on the count forever. The Linux `XThread::Resume`
  discards the `false`, so the guest saw success. Fixed by publishing both under
  one lock and waiting without releasing it. On the first clean boot after, the
  loader thread is the **caller** on 20 kernel-call lines with 4 `ResolvePath`
  reads — every failure before had **zero** of both.
  🟡 **Still to show:** that boots now reach the menu *reliably*. The post-fix
  boot is confounded — `skip_intro.sh`'s title test has been wrong twice (an
  absolute pixel against the wrong surface size, then `screen_id.py` matching the
  SQUARE ENIX logo). Now `tools/re-capture/is_title.py` counts the green Ⓐ glyph:
  0 px on the logo, 1520 on a real title. A before/after reliability count over
  several boots is the remaining work.
  See [`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md).
* ❔ **Blend mode.** Everything is straight alpha-over. The near-white flash
  quads (`0xf0ffffff`) and coloured ones (`0x60ff0000`) may be additive. The
  title capture cannot separate the two — its resting elements are all
  `0xffffff`. A screen with a coloured primitive, captured, would.

* 🔴 **What marks a focused state in the file — NOT the declaration entry**
  (2026-08-24). Swept disc-wide and asserted: **54** name-paired focused/base
  pairs, **all 54** with identical `kind` (all `0x0`), **no** bit ever set on the
  focused entry and clear on its base, and the only words of the 60-byte entry
  that ever differ are **`+48`/`+52`, the pivot**. The naming pairing is not
  standing in for a field — there is no field.
  ❔ Still open: the `.rat` record, the RATC child stream, or the game's code.
  See [`structures/ui-rat-layout.md`](structures/ui-rat-layout.md).
* 🔴 **What makes a bundle a screen rather than a fragment — not the header**
  (2026-08-24). Swept over all **2 859** composable bundles: **no bit** of the
  flags word at `+0x10` labels a screen (best is bit 13 at **44 %** full-screen
  against a **12.8 %** base; the commonest bit is set on **91 %** of everything).
  The population really is mostly fragments — element counts min 1, **median 2**,
  p95 23, max 56, and only **365** carry a full-screen element — so the
  separation is *shape*, or which bundle references which, and the PAK cannot
  answer the latter directly because its entries are name-hashed.
  ✅ **By-product:** the header is not dead space. `+0x18`/`+0x1c` are the
  **design resolution** (1280/720 on 98.7 %, asserted), and ✅ `+0x08` is the
  **animation length** — checked against the keyframe times, which it bounds in
  **2 313 of 2 313** bundles and is attained by **444**, with the ratio peaking
  at 1.0 rather than near zero (that histogram is what rules out a vacuous
  bound). 🟡 `+0x04` (`0x3C0000`/`0x1E0000` = 60.0/30.0 in 16.16) stays amber:
  the only supporting evidence is that the twelve 30.0 bundles cap at `+0x08`=30
  while the 2 843 60.0 ones reach 1 440. ❔ `+0x0c` and `+0x10` unexplained.
  See [`structures/ui-rat-layout.md`](structures/ui-rat-layout.md).
* 🟡 **What `opt ` links — a record→record reference** (2026-08-24, measured
  disc-wide and asserted). All **1 467** links reachable from a declaration table
  resolve to a **RATC child of their own bundle**, all are `.rat → .rat`, none
  dangle, none self-link. **1 076 (73 %)** are the `<stem>f` focus pattern; the
  rest are **chains** between effect records (`px_bunk_eff01 → pjex_eff →
  pjex_eff07`), which is also why only 227 targets are declared elements — the
  middle of a chain is, the end is not. So focus is the commonest *use*, not the
  meaning. ⚠️ Coverage: 18 718 raw `opt ` tags exist against 1 467 classified —
  `opt_link` reads the first tag of a declared element's record, so ~92 % of
  occurrences sit deeper in the chains and are untested.

The investigation that got here follows, kept in full because most of it is
refutations that were worth the cost.

## The dynamic-RE state is not in git, and it was gone

**Found 2026-08-23.** Everything the oracle runs on — the baseline emulator
binary, the Xbox profile, the Stage 02 save, the shader/code caches — lives
outside both repos and had been wiped. `sylph-doctor` says "all good" without
any of it; the first symptom is `NO PROFILE on disc` one second into a boot.

**Rebuilt and verified by driving it** (LOAD GAME lists the slot → READY ROOM →
Stage 02 flight): [`dynamic-re-state-restore.md`](dynamic-re-state-restore.md)
carries the recipe — incremental rebuild of `auto/upstream-baseline` in the
shared checkout (202 files, no submodule churn), profile bootstrapped with the
*instrumented* binary's `--create_profile_if_none`, and the committed
`savedata-stage02-5pct.bin` installed **without** an Xbox content header, which
`ContentManager::ListContent` does not need.

**Open, and cheap:**

* ✅ **`launch_mission.sh` finishes unattended again** (2026-08-23, later):
  boot → title → LOAD GAME → slot 01 → READY ROOM → TAKE OFF → `IN FLIGHT at
  34s`, pilot bound and engaging. Two defects, not one: the fixed `sleep 28` for
  LOAD → READY ROOM (now `wait_screen.sh readyroom`), and the READY ROOM being
  **drawn before it is usable** — `Preparing to Sortie`, TAKE OFF greyed, which
  whole-image statistics cannot see (1.7 units of blue) so `take_off_armed.py`
  tests the label. A third defect fell out of the same run: `wait_flight.sh` was
  testing pixel (450,640) "inside the SHIELD bar" of a **1280×720** window, while
  `screenshot` crops to the **1279×675** game surface — it lands between the
  SHIELD and ARMOR bars. That is the long-standing "reported NEVER REACHED FLIGHT
  while plainly in flight" note, now explained and fixed.
* ❔ **Nothing guarantees this state survives the next container.** If it is
  meant to, the profile + save + `bin/` copies want a home inside a repo or a
  named volume; that is a call for the user, not for an agent.

## ✅ SOLVED (2026-08-23) — the mission objective counter is at `0xbdb59668`, and the hunt is automated

🔴 **`0xbdb59668` is refuted as a durable address** (2026-08-23): 0 in two
independent Stage 02 runs while the HUD read `004`/`008`/`012`, on an allocated
(not sparse) page. The **method** stands; the number does not, and every session
must re-scan. Two candidates from the re-scan were themselves refuted by the
corpus's own "verify across a transition you did not select on" rule. Detail and
the corrected method note (the scan takes **0.9 s** — the trap is the counter
climbing `004 → 012` in four minutes, not scan duration) in
[`structures/mission-objective-counter.md`](structures/mission-objective-counter.md).

✅ **Settled the same day, once the HUD stopped costing a human round trip.**
`ob_read.py` reads the three digits by normalised template correlation and
`ob_hunt.py` runs the whole method unattended; run 4 then gave **one** survivor
from 35 897, selected on `004 → 008` and verified on the unselected `008 → 012`,
plus three live paired RAM/HUD readings. The blocker was never the pilot's
survival — the evidence lives in the first four minutes of the stage, and the
earlier runs simply could not look often enough to catch the `008` step.

🔴 Yesterday's refutation **stands, refined**: the address is not universal (runs
2 and 3 read a hard 0 there while the HUD counted), but it is not meaningless
either — it recurs exactly, and run 3's amber candidate sits one 64 KB page below
it at the same page offset `0x9668`. Rule: try `0xbdb59668`, check it against the
HUD, re-scan (~5 min, `ob_session.sh`) when it reads 0.
The follow-on that the autopilot actually needs is unchanged and untouched:
❔ what the counter counts, and whether an `OB`-badged entity carries a flag in
its entity object.

## What `REMAINING OB` counts — and an in-mission freeze in the way

**2026-08-23.** The address is settled (above); *what it counts* is not, and it
is what the autopilot needs in order to CHOOSE a target. One run in:

* 🔴 **Not a live class head-count.** Counter 4 against 8 attackers / 7 friendly
  Delta Sabers / 7 turrets / 1 player — no class matches, no pair sums to it.
* 🔴 **The per-entity flag is REFUTED** (2026-08-23, final): sample A at counter
  12 over 120 entities gave **2** candidates; the counter went **12 → 11** and
  **neither survived**. Within ±0x400 of the position triple there is no 4-byte
  word whose shared-value population tracks the counter. ❔ **Not** ruled out: a
  single **bit** ORed into a word that also varies (the test needs an exact
  shared value), anything outside that window, and anything on entities
  `entities2` cannot see — it types by position *changing*, so stationary
  objectives are invisible. 🔴 **The bit-level differential is REFUTED too**
  (2026-08-24): two independently selected transitions in one run — scan at 4
  filtered on 4→8 (29 of 710 survive), scan at 8 filtered on 8→12 (2 of 197) —
  and the **intersection is empty**. No per-entity bit in either polarity tracks
  the counter; 16 of pass 1's survivors were the same word `+0x250` with
  different bits, i.e. a *shared value*, not a flag. Earlier note: 🔎 **Built**
  (`ob_bitflag.py`, 2026-08-24) and run three times with **no verification
  yet**: one window was spent on a mission that had already ended in GAME OVER,
  one hit the same dead mission, and the third had the counter at a different
  address and then froze after a single filter. Sample A alone gives ~187
  set-polarity + 33 clear-polarity candidates at counter 4, so the second
  transition is the whole test.
* ⚠️ **Attrition is now the dominant cost of every in-mission item.** Roughly
  half the runs that reach flight end early — a freeze, or a GAME OVER when the
  ACROPOLIS or the craft is lost — and a scan needs the run to survive **two**
  counter transitions. `frozen.in_flight()` at least makes a dead run say so
  immediately instead of waiting out its window.
* ✅ **What the counter's neighbourhood IS — the HUD glyph quads**
  (2026-08-24). The four pointers that move with it lead to objects whose vtable
  is `0x820B2A64`: **32 slots**, methods `0x823c43b0…0x823c45a0`, **three**
  construction sites in `sylpheed.db`. Each instance is a **textured quad** — a
  pixel size (34×42 for a digit) and four vertices of `(colour, u, v)` — and the
  UV rectangle × **1280×768** reproduces that pixel size to a rounding step, so
  the font atlas size is measured, not guessed.
  See [`structures/hud-glyph-quad.md`](structures/hud-glyph-quad.md).
* 🔴 **The counter is not "hostiles left" either.** It held at `012` for fifteen
  minutes of live flight while the ADAN population fell 132 → 93.
* ✅ **But it decrements when the player kills**: `12 → 11` with 411 `fire=1`
  samples and `YOU KILLED WARPLANES 0003` on the HUD — the first decrement seen,
  and the first run where the player's guns were part of the experiment.
* ✅ **`pilot.py` never fires — ROOT CAUSE FIXED** (2026-08-23):
  `flight_probe.Pad` was writing to the **vgamepad FIFO**, dead since the uinput
  pad was replaced by `--hid=file`, so every axis, trigger and button from every
  flight tool went into a file nothing reads while `/tmp/xenia_pad.txt` stayed
  empty. The craft was never being flown. Verified: full stick went from `0.00°`
  of heading change to `12.72°`, and the attitude matrix from `d 0.0000` to
  `d 0.4438` — which also **refutes** the "stale attitude matrix" suspicion.
  ✅ **And the second half: the PITCH stick sign was inverted.** Measured on a
  45° error, both sides, two pulse widths, with the opposite sign as control:
  the pilot's sign grew the error every time, the opposite shrank it every time.
  Fixed, and **the pilot fires** — `fire=1` in **43 of 1 732** samples against 0
  of 13 521, aim down to 2.3°, range median 43 km → 6.3 km, and the HUD's own
  ammunition counters moving. 🟡 Still open: `YOU KILLED` is `0000` after 250 s
  of firing and `REMAINING OB` is still `012` — whether it *destroys* anything is
  the next measurement, and the objective-counter item is waiting on it.
  ⚠️ `findrot_global.py`, `findself.py`, `findspeed.py`, `selfstate.py` still
  write to the dead FIFO and `ctrl_probe.py`/`target_probe.py` still use
  `pad.f`; all flagged in place, none repaired.
  See [`pilot-never-fires.md`](pilot-never-fires.md).
* ✅ **`EMULATOR GONE` is SOLVED — it was this project's own `Stop` hook**
  (2026-08-24), which `kill -9`s `xenia_canary` at the end of every agent turn.
  Every "mysterious" death was a turn boundary. **Operational rule:** an emulator
  experiment must complete **inside one turn** — nothing can be left running for
  a later tick, and a watcher armed for 1 500 s only watches the rest of *this*
  turn. Memory pressure was raised and refuted along the way; that measurement
  stands, it just was not pointing at anything.
* 🔴 **An in-mission freeze — the item in front of everything else.** Reproduced
  with the Kernel channel on. 🔴 The resume-spin lead is **refuted by its own
  control**: a still-flying run has *more* refused resumes (2 738) than a frozen
  one, because the game runs a self-suspending worker and the host refusal is one
  per cycle by design. ✅ What is established instead: the guest is **spinning,
  not deadlocked** — over 10 s while frozen the main thread is in state `R`
  gaining 409 ticks, guest threads ~680 in total, and **not one kernel call** is
  made. So it is guest code waiting on guest memory. ✅ **Seen from inside** (2026-08-24, gdb): all **79** threads are in a
  **wait** — guest threads in `KeWaitForSingleObject`/`NtWaitForSingleObjectEx`,
  the GPU processor idle, the main thread in `poll()` — while the process still
  burns **1 253 ticks / 10 s**, 403 of them in the **TimerQueue** thread and
  ~280 each in two guest threads the backtrace shows *blocked*. So they are
  **cycling through a timed wait**, and the CPU burn is in the kernel layer's
  wait path, not in guest code. No Canary build was needed: `XENIA_BIN` pointing
  at a gdb wrapper keeps the lockfile and satisfies `ptrace_scope=1`.
  🔴 **Reading the wait target from the log is blocked by cost**:
  `KeWaitForSingleObject` is `kHighFrequency` and silent without
  `--log_high_frequency_kernel_calls=true`, and *with* it the emulator is 17
  minutes into a boot with a **black screen** and 175 MB of log. ✅ **Built** (canary `auto/re-wait-timeout-probe` `820696c11`,
  `--log_stuck_waits=true`, binary at `/sylph-home/re/bin/waitprobe/`): counts
  consecutive timeouts on the same object per thread and logs at 100 then every
  500. **Healthy-run control measured** — 27 lines over 25 minutes, all one
  thread polling one Event at guest VA `BE56BB5C` with a ~30 ms timeout, so the
  freeze signal is a **new (thread, object) pair**, not the presence of output.
  🔴 **A freeze WAS caught (2026-08-24) and the probe says nothing.** It froze
  9 s into the watcher's window, in flight, and reported the healthy baseline
  only — one pair, same object VA, no new (thread, object) pair — while the CPU
  signature was unchanged (1 255 ticks/10 s, 401 in the TimerQueue thread). So
  the freeze is **not** a thread looping on timeouts against one object.
  **Two blind spots survive:** waits cycling over *different* objects (the streak
  resets, so they are invisible), or waits that **succeed** rather than time out
  (nothing for a timeout counter to count — which fits the self-suspending worker
  seen cycling successfully in the kernel log).
  ✅ **v2 built and its baseline is itself a result** (canary `597740046`): it
  counts every call per thread per second with the distinct-object count and the
  return value. On a healthy 22-minute run the **main thread cleared 500 calls/s
  in 224 windows, peaking at 1 235/s over up to 13 distinct objects**, and the
  result was `X_STATUS_SUCCESS` in **all 314** windows — not one timeout. So the
  game's normal mode is hundreds of *successful* waits a second across many
  objects, which is exactly what v1 could not see.
  🟡 **Consequence:** 500/s is not self-selecting, so the freeze signal must be a
  *different shape* — far above 1 235/s, a new thread, or a non-SUCCESS result.
  **Next:** a frozen sample to compare against; runs 5 and 6 did not freeze
  (GAME OVER at ~22 min, and still healthy at 10 min). **Three** runs in a
  row have now failed to freeze (the third ended in GAME OVER), and the probe's
  healthy control is measured three times — 27, 24 and 36 lines, always the same
  single pair. `frozen.py` detects the state in one call; `ob_hunt.py` /
  `ob_flag.py` abort on it. **Roughly two runs in three.**
  See [`mission-freeze-resume-spin.md`](mission-freeze-resume-spin.md).

**First step, revised:** make `pilot.py` shoot, then re-run `ob_flag.py`. The
freeze is no longer the blocker it looked like — a 25-minute run stayed
animating — and the actual obstacle is that nothing the pilot does moves the
counter, so there is never a second sample. If the counter still will not move
when the player is killing things, the next question is what *does* move it, and
the objective card's own wording ("shoot down all invading enemy fighters") is
the place to start. Second step, if that comes back empty: `entities2.typed` only
sees entities whose position *changes*, so a stationary objective is invisible to
it, and the enumeration itself would need widening before a null result means
anything.

See [`mission-freeze-and-ob-flag.md`](mission-freeze-and-ob-flag.md).

## The declaration table is not a paint order on every screen

**Found 2026-08-17**, building the Explorer's UI Screens browser on
[`ui_layout`](structures/ui-rat-layout.md). **Status: 🔎 open — the pause menu is
right, the title screen is not.**

`ui-rat-layout.md` says the bundle's element declaration table lists elements
"in back-to-front order", verified 11/11 on the tutorial pause bundle. That
holds — the tutorial and in-mission PAUSE builds both composite correctly, and
`pgpeff02a` → parent 3 / `pgp_ttrl_btn10` at (546,288) / the 70 px button pitch
all reproduce exactly.

**`GP_TITLE.pak` build 7 does not.** Painting in declaration order puts
`ptbase2.t32` (the full-screen background art, element **13**) *on top of* the
`ptlogo1`/`ptlogo2` wordmarks (elements **0–5**), which the real title screen
obviously does not do. The pause bundles never caught this because their
elements barely overlap.

**What has been ruled out:** there is no depth/layer key in the 60-byte
declaration entry. Dumping every word across the title build's 30 entries, the
unknown fields are constant — `+28` is 0 everywhere, `+44` is `0xffffffff`
everywhere, `+56` is 0 everywhere — and `+36`, which the doc lists as
`0xffffffff`, is not a depth either: it is `0`/`1` **only** on the `kind = 0x4`
repeated-instance entries (`ptlogo1`/`ptlogo2` copies), i.e. an instance index.
So the order is not recoverable by sorting the table on any field it carries.

**What that leaves.** The background group is contiguous — elements 12, 13, 14
are `pteff00.prm`, `ptbase2.t32`, `pteff04.t32`, and 12 carries `kind = 0x10`,
a flag no pause element has (theirs are `0x0` / `0x1` / `0x3002`). `pteff02.prm`
at 17 has it too. So `0x10` marking a `PRMD` primitive, and primitives opening a
layer that draws beneath what precedes them, is the cheapest hypothesis — but it
is a **hypothesis**, and "draw the `.prm` group first" would fit this one screen
without being evidence of anything.

**First step:** composite `GP_MISSION_SELECT` / `GP_READY_ROOM` / `GP_OPTIONS`,
which have both a background and overlapping foreground elements, and see
whether their background sits at a `0x10`-adjacent index too. Two more screens
agreeing turns the hypothesis into a rule; one disagreeing kills it. The
Explorer's `screen render`/`screen info` commands make that a minute's work per
screen, and the per-element visibility toggles isolate a suspect element.

**Meanwhile** the viewer paints in declaration order and does not pretend
otherwise — a screen whose background lands on top is showing you this bug, not
a decode failure.

### 2026-08-18 — measured against the running game; three orderings refuted, and half the symptom was a different bug

**The premise is confirmed by the oracle**, which this entry had not had: a
framebuffer capture of Canary on the title screen
([`captures/title-screen-oracle.png`](captures/title-screen-oracle.png)) shows
the `PROJECT SYLPHEED` wordmarks (elements 0–5) drawn **over** `ptbase2.t32`
(element 13), which is a full-screen background. Declaration order is therefore
not the paint order on this screen, and no reading of the element table changes
that.

**But part of what the render showed was not the paint order at all.** In the
capture `ptbase2` covers the whole screen; the compositor drew it as a
960×540-visible slab starting at (320,180), because a keyframe's `scale` was
being grown from the keyframe's corner instead of about the declared **pivot**.
Fixed, and pinned against the capture by cross-correlation (peak at (0,0)) — see
[`structures/ui-rat-layout.md`](structures/ui-rat-layout.md). That was a real
defect worth separating out: it moves **865** of the disc's 5 130 resting
placements, on every screen, independently of any ordering question.

**Three candidate orderings are now dead**, all cheaply:

- **The placement region is not a second ordering.** Its keyframe groups carry an
  explicit element index, so they *could* be stored in a different order — they
  are not, on **every** build on the disc (`placement_region_order_is_never_a_second_ordering`,
  >500 builds, identity every time).
- **The RATC child order is not it either.** For the title build it is the
  declaration order with the `.prm` elements absent — strictly less information,
  and it has no place to put `ptbase2` other than where the table already puts it.
- **Reverse declaration order is refuted by the same capture**: it would draw
  `ptbase2` (13) over `ptcopyright` (28), and the copyright line is visible.

**The `0x10`-adjacency first step was run, and it does not survive.** The
background *is* adjacent to a `kind = 0x10` `.prm` element on both screens that
have one — but on **opposite sides**. `GP_TITLE` build 7 is
`12 pteff00.prm (0x10)`, `13 ptbase2.t32`, `14 pteff04.t32`;
`GP_MISSION_SELECT` build 0 is `0 px_mission_base.tbm`, `1 px_mission_eff00.prm
(0x10)`. So "the `.prm` opens a layer that draws beneath what precedes it" cannot
place both, and no rule keyed on the `.prm`'s position orders the background.
`GP_READY_ROOM` and `GP_OPTIONS` turned out not to be the third and fourth
witnesses this entry hoped for: neither of their largest builds carries a `.prm`
or a full-screen background at all, so they cannot discriminate.

**What is still open, stated plainly:** nothing in the bundle has been found that
orders element 13 behind elements 0–5. Every ordering the file itself carries is
now either identical to the declaration table or refuted by the capture. The next
step is no longer static — it is either the guest code that walks this table, or a
per-draw capture of the title screen showing the order the game submits.

**Blocker, checked rather than assumed.** The obvious move is to reuse Canary's
existing RE instrumentation, which is already in the built binary on
`sylpheed-re`. Neither hook can answer this:

- **`--log_draws`** (`command_processor.cc`) de-dups by a *vertex-declaration
  fingerprint* — shader hash + primitive type + per-stream element
  formats/offsets + index-buffer guest base — and writes each distinct one once.
  A screen's sprites share a declaration, so they collapse; and the record
  carries no texture identity and no per-frame submission order, only first-seen
  order. It is a mesh-format log, not a draw-order log.
- **The F10 ship capture** does preserve per-draw order within a frame and
  de-dups on `(vertex base, WVP transform, index range)`, which would separate
  the elements — but it **explicitly drops UI draws**:
  `if (pos_off_bytes < 0 …) return;  // no float-position stream (UI/effects) —
  skip`. It requires an `f32x3` position attribute, which a 2D quad stream does
  not have.

So this needs a **new hook in Canary** — log each draw in submission order with
its bound texture fetch (or its screen-space quad), gated behind a cvar the way
the other two are — and therefore a `build-canary` run. That is the cost to
state up front rather than discover halfway in; it is not a container
limitation, just a long build plus a title-screen run.

### 2026-08-18 (later) — the hook was built and run; the order is now measured

`log_ui_draws` exists (Canary branch `auto/re-ui-draw-order`), and the title
screen's paint order is **ground truth** rather than a candidate:
[`ui-title-paint-order-capture.md`](ui-title-paint-order-capture.md).

Background first, then the `back2` glow pair, then `ptlogo1` + `ptlogo_tm`, then
`ptlogo2`, then `ptcopyright`, then the `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` plate — i.e.
declaration indices `13, 22|24, 23, 0, 11, 1, 28` and then two elements that are
**not in build 7 at all**. Two more orderings die on that evidence (keyframe
start time, resting-keyframe time), and one structural fact reframes the whole
item: the screen composites **two bundles** (build 7 plus the one-element build
2 that is the button), so no single build's element table can be the paint order
whatever its order.

**Still open, and now sharper:** the rule. The bundle's 60-byte declaration entry
carries no depth field (dumped, above); the per-element `.rat` record has not
been checked for one against this ground truth, and nothing yet explains how the
two bundles are sequenced. Both are static questions again — the oracle side is
answered.

### 2026-08-18 (third pass) — the bundle does not carry the order at all

Three more places checked, all empty, so the static avenue for this item is
**exhausted** (detail and evidence in
[`ui-title-paint-order-capture.md`](ui-title-paint-order-capture.md)):

- **the geometry has no depth.** A UI quad's attribute 0 is `k_32_32_32_FLOAT`,
  so it carries a Z — and every Z in the capture is 0.00000. Submission order is
  the entire ordering.
- **the declaration table has no key.** Every word of every entry dumped for the
  build the game actually runs: `+28` 0, `+32` `0xffffffff`, `+36` `0xffffffff`
  (except an instance index on `kind = 0x4`), `+44` `0xffffffff`, `+56` 0.
- **the placement region has none either**, including its per-group lead word,
  which is 0 for all 24 groups; and the region is followed straight by the RATC
  child stream, so there is no table hiding behind it.

Also corrected: the running screen is **build 4**, not the largest build 7 that
`screen info` defaults to — the two disagree on sprite sizes and the capture
matches build 4. The conclusions are unchanged, the indices are not.

**So the next step is the guest code**, not the file: the splash draw path from
the emulator-era work (`sub_821CC7A0`, item vtable `0x820b30b4`) submits with
exactly the PS hash `E59B2B3D` this capture sees, and `xenia-rs/sylpheed.db` is
available in the container.

**And a second screen is NO LONGER BLOCKED, but it is not routine either.** The
main menu has been reached (screenshot in
[`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md)), so the
"Ⓐ is dead" reading is withdrawn. **Not routine after all** — see the 2026-08-19 tables in
[`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md): 4 of 5
successes without `--log_ui_draws`, 0 of 7 with it. An interleaved series
**refuted the boot-time confound** (the latest title of all, 268 s, accepted Ⓐ;
a 232 s title refused), and no mechanism exists for the flag — it is read only
when F10 arms a capture, and F10 was never pressed. The variable was removed rather than
believed — F10 now arms the capture unconditionally — and with it gone a fresh
run **still** failed, so the flag is not the cause either. Net: Ⓐ succeeds about
half the time and nothing measurable predicts which; five explanations are
eliminated. The input path is now mapped statically (`entry_point` →
`sub_8216EA68` main loop → `sub_822F1AA8` per-frame input → `sub_82457038` pad
poll → `XamInputGetKeystrokeEx`), and the poll itself is not state-gated, so the
gate is in a consumer further up. Until that
is separated, capturing a screen *and* navigating to it in the same run is not
dependable. The earlier claim, kept: the title that ends the boot sequence
accepts a single Ⓐ (2 of 2 at the time); the title the attract loop returns to
accepts nothing (Ⓐ, START, B,
BACK, X, Y — dozens of delivered presses). The proposed tell was refuted on the
way: the two states draw **13 identical quads**, `ptbtn00` included, so they
differ only to the guest. Recipe: first title after boot, one tap, and never tap
during the boot (88 presses over the intro ends on a permanent black screen).

**The second screen is captured** — the main menu, `GP_TITLE` build 5 — and it
does not discriminate: its background sits at declaration indices 1–2, so
"declaration order" and "background first" predict the same sequence. Same
failure mode as `GP_READY_ROOM`/`GP_OPTIONS`. The next screen worth capturing is
one whose background sits **late** in its table, as the title's does.

The earlier reading, kept because it is what the evidence looked like: the
title's Ⓐ leads into a content/save path that crashes the guest with
`--mem_watch=true` and stalls it with `--mem_watch=false`. Three separate traps
had to be cleared to establish that much — see
[`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md), which also
carries the reproduction and the fix for two of them.

### 2026-08-18 (fourth pass) — the crash is named, and the code avenue is scoped

The crash PC resolves to an MSVC `std::map`/`set` erase that throws
`std::out_of_range` from the game's cache-manager flush, and the trigger is now
controlled: an **incomplete on-disc cache** throws ~100 s into a boot, a complete
one never does. The access violation people have been chasing is only that throw
*returning*, because this build does not unwind guest EH. And the handoff's
suspect #1 is **eliminated** — cold cache with `--mem_watch=false` throws just
the same, which withdraws a claim made here yesterday. See
[`title-crash-stl-tree.md`](title-crash-stl-tree.md). That is a by-product of
this item and belongs to whoever picks up the crash bisection.

For the ordering itself, three more negatives, all recorded in
[`ui-title-paint-order-capture.md`](ui-title-paint-order-capture.md): the two
time-based orderings were re-checked against **build 4** (the previous pass used
build 7's numbers, and build 7 is not what runs) and both still fail on the same
element; and a fresh candidate — painter's order by resting **Y** — reproduces
the capture to within a single transposition but is refuted by `ptlogo_tm` and by
the background, so it is not the rule either.

The code avenue is scoped rather than walked: the splash item vtable
`0x820b30b4` is real (25 slots, three construction sites), RTTI carries **no**
class names disc-wide, and the format tags are fourcc immediates behind a virtual
call rather than strings — so this needs a deliberate read of the UI engine, not
a keyword search.


## Capital ships assemble wrong in the viewer

**Reported:** 2026-07-30, by the user. **Status:** ✅ **format-side cause found and
fixed 2026-08-12** — see below for the 2026-08-10 diagnosis this supersedes.

The remaining format-side defect this entry pointed at (a shared turret decoding
~100× too large in some containers) was real and is gone. `e303_wep_01` decoded
as a 1600×2100×4800 block in `Stage_S02`, swallowing the `e106` hull; requiring an
index buffer to cover its vertex pool **exactly** moved it to the block every
other container agrees on, and it now decodes 49×23×42 everywhere and places at
±179 on the hull. The same fix repaired `e106_bdy_03` (a 600×1600×998 slab) and
moved 29 anchors disc-wide, 22 of which had been carrying **another resource's
geometry under their own name**. See
[`structures/xbg7-mesh.md`](structures/xbg7-mesh.md).

Two things are worth carrying forward rather than closing:
- the assembler was **audited and exonerated** — every composite node carries
  scale 1.0 and an orthonormal matrix, so nothing on that side inflates a part;
- **no metric caught this.** Coverage, cross-container consistency, the capture
  oracle and the twin invariant were all green while a 1 600-unit slab sat through
  the ship. It was found by *rendering the ship and looking at it*, and the
  numeric screens written afterwards to automate that check both failed.

The 2026-08-10 diagnosis follows, and its viewer-side pointers still stand.

**Status (2026-08-10):** 🔎 **the format layer is exonerated.** Runtime captures of three classes (`f105`, `e105`,
`e106`) at controlled range reproduce `assemble_ship` to ≤0.43 units in translation
and to 0.000 in rotation for every part that does not move; see
[`ship-placement-capture-generalisation.md`](ship-placement-capture-generalisation.md)
§4. So look at **the viewer**: first that it passes `include_external = true`
(`iso_loader.rs:4012` — with `false` an e106 loses its bridge and both nacelles,
5 parts instead of 11), then its own transform stack.

One real format-side bug was found on the way and is **fixed**: index-less parts
(`e105_brg`) never matched their `GN_Bridge_01` hardpoint, so 34 (stage, ship) entries
— `e102`, `e104`, `e105` across Stages 02–29 — assembled without a bridge. The other
apparent exception (`e105_eng_01` rotation) was an aggregation artefact and is 0.000.

The original report and its reasoning follow.

The reborn viewer builds capital ships from the split XBG7 parts via
`sylpheed-formats::ship::assemble_ship`, and they come out **wrong** — parts in the
wrong place / wrong orientation.

**Why this is a real finding and not a known limitation:** the RE write-up
[`ship-placement-runtime-capture.md`](ship-placement-runtime-capture.md) declares
static assembly ✅ **exact** as of 2026-07-26 — 9-channel joint tables
`[TX TY TZ RY RX RZ SX SY SZ]`, Euler `Ry·Rx·Rz`, with
`ship::tests::static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` asserting static == runtime
capture (T < 1.0, R < 0.02). So either the viewer is not using that path, or the
claim generalises worse than the test suggests.

**The likely gap:** that test is **one ship** — the `e106` destroyer, 8 parts plus
two nacelles, two turrets and the hull mirror. Nothing pins the other classes.
Rules that were derived from `e106` and could easily be `e106`-specific:

- the engine cluster rig mounted at `GN_Engine_01` (two mirrored nacelles + centre);
- "X-reflect the shared-geometry twin whose lateral offset opposes the geometry's
  dominant side" — a heuristic, not a decoded flag;
- cross-id turret instancing (×2).

**First step (the oracle already exists):** re-run the runtime capture on a *different*
capital ship and diff static vs captured, exactly as `e106` was done — F10 in the
`capture-ship-placement` build of `xenia-canary-native` dumps the ship shader's
`c0..c2` WorldViewProjection rows per part; `WV_ref⁻¹ · WV_p` is the ship-space rigid
transform, which is ground truth. Pick a class whose rig differs from `e106`
(different engine count, a ship with no `sld`, a carrier). Then extend
`static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` into a per-ship table so a regression in one
class cannot hide behind `e106` passing.

**Also worth ruling out first, cheaply:** that the viewer's own transform stack (scale,
handedness, node-instance recursion) is not re-breaking a correct assembly — compare
the viewer's placement against `assemble_ship`'s output directly before blaming the
format layer.

---

## Viewer: `include_external` is already on — that hypothesis is dead

**Checked 2026-08-11.** The item above names "first that it passes
`include_external = true` (`iso_loader.rs:4012`)" as the cheap first step. It
does: `ShipBrowser::show_external` defaults to `true`
(`iso_loader.rs:643`), the checkbox reads it (`ui.rs:1593`) and it is threaded
through `RequestShipRender` → `build_ship_model` → `assemble_ship` unchanged
(`ui.rs:1689`, `iso_loader.rs:4012`). So a ship rendered by the viewer is the
full external assembly, not the bare hull.

The viewer also does not have a transform stack of its own to blame: it bakes
`ScenePart::apply` straight into the vertices and rotates normals by the same
`p.m` (`iso_loader.rs:4030-4062`), so its placement is `assemble_ship`'s output
by construction. What remains unexcluded, in order of cheapness: the mirror
handling (`det < 0` reverses triangle winding only — a reflected part keeps its
reflected geometry), `Xbg7Model::models_named` resolving the wrong sub-model when
a resource name repeats, and the exhaust cones. **Next step is a visual**: the
diagnosis has run out of things it can settle by reading, so the viewer needs to
be run against a known-good class (`e106`) and its render compared with
`ship_render`'s.

---

## Viewer: the duplicate-resource-name hypothesis is dead too

**Checked 2026-08-11.** The diagnosis above left three candidates for why capital
ships assemble wrong in the viewer: mirror handling, `Xbg7Model::models_named`
resolving the wrong sub-model when a resource name repeats, and the exhaust
cones. The second is now **refuted**, and comprehensively.

`build_ship_model` resolves each placement with
`base.iter().find(|m| m.name == p.resource)` (`iso_loader.rs:4041`) — first match
wins — so a repeated resource name inside a container would silently draw the
wrong geometry. It cannot happen: decoding **every** XBG7 resource in **all 22
stage containers** gives **4 603 resources and zero repeated names**.

```
Stage_S01  62/62      Stage_S07 323/323     Stage_S13 290/290     Stage_S25 351/351
Stage_S02 304/304     Stage_S08 388/388     Stage_S14  22/22      Stage_S26 318/318
Stage_S03 214/214     Stage_S09 316/316     Stage_S15 386/386     Stage_S27 321/321
Stage_S04 179/179     Stage_S10   7/7       Stage_S16  65/65      Stage_S28 118/118
Stage_S05  92/92      Stage_S11 157/157     Stage_S24 162/162     Stage_S29 386/386
Stage_S06 266/266     Stage_S12 376/376
```

Per-ship it is tighter still: `e106` wants 9 distinct names and decodes exactly
9 models for 11 placements; `e105` 9 for 9; `f105` 5 for 6. Every placement
resolves to the one model it names.

**So two of the three candidates are gone** (this one and `include_external`),
leaving **mirror handling** and **the exhaust cones** — and the still-untried
visual comparison, which remains the right next step.

---

## Viewer: mirror handling and the exhaust cones are cleared too — the static avenue is exhausted

**Checked 2026-08-11.** Both remaining candidates were tested across every ship
on the disc, and neither shows the reported signature.

**Mirror handling.** The concern was that `ScenePart::apply` bakes `R·(S·v)+T`
while the viewer takes its winding-flip decision from `det(m)` alone and rotates
normals by `m` alone — both ignoring `s`. A mirror encoded as a *negative scale*
would then reflect geometry without flipping winding, drawing the part
inside-out. It never happens: across **1 485 assembled parts** in all 22
containers there are **22 mirrored parts, every one with `det(m) < 0`**, and
**zero** parts with a negative scale or a non-uniform one. `apply_twin_mirrors`
writes the reflection into `m` (negating its X column), so the viewer's flip
always fires, and ignoring `s` for normals is harmless because `s` is always
uniform.

**Exhaust cones.** These are the one piece of geometry the viewer *invents* — a
cone at each `GN_Jet`/`GN_SJet` frame, because the real engine geometry is
recessed and the game draws FX there instead. If they landed wrongly they would
read exactly as "a part in the wrong place". Across **335 assembled ships, 192 of
which have exhaust frames, not one cone sits outside its hull's bounding box**
(tolerance 10 % of the axis span).

**Caveat, stated rather than glossed:** "inside the hull box" does not prove a
cone is *right* — orientation and size are untested, and a cone could be wrong
while still inside. What it does rule out is the reported symptom for that part.

So every mechanism this diagnosis proposed is now eliminated: `include_external`,
duplicate resource names, mirror handling, and cones-in-the-wrong-place. The
format and assembly layers pass every static test available, and **the visual
comparison is no longer merely the next step — it is the only remaining one.**
Render `e106` in the viewer beside `ship_render`'s output of the same
`assemble_ship` result; if they agree, the bug is in neither and the original
report needs re-grounding against a specific ship and a specific expectation.

---

## ⚠️ DIAGNOSED 2026-08-12 — a mis-decode; the locality fix was written, then withdrawn

> Resolution at the end of this entry. Kept in full because the two wrong turns
> along the way (a "stray volume", then "monotonic anchoring") are the useful part.

## ⚠️ The format layer is NOT exonerated — but the cause is a MIS-DECODE, not a stray volume

**Found 2026-08-11 by finally doing the visual**, which the notes above kept
naming as the next step. It overturns their conclusion.

Render `e106` from the static assembly and from the baked runtime capture and
compare — `ship_render` does both:

| | placements | parts |
|---|---|---|
| runtime capture (ground truth) | **8** | `bdy_01…04`, `brg_01`, `eng_01`, `eng_02`, `wep_02_01` |
| `assemble_ship(--static)` | **11** | the same 8, **plus `e303_wep_01` ×2** and a second `e106_eng_01` |

The render makes it obvious: the destroyer sits inside a white slab that dwarfs
it ([capture](captures/e106-static-assembly-volume-bug.png)). That slab is
`e303_wep_01`, and its own geometry is:

```
e303_wep_01     172 verts, 110 tris   bounds X[-1000, 600] Y[-1050, 1050] Z[-2400, 2400]   1600 x 2100 x 4800
e106_wep_02_01 1002 verts, 772 tris   269 x 179 x 417      ← what a real e106 turret looks like
e106_brg_01     202 verts, 202 tris   105 x  76 x 305
```

**110 triangles, perfectly round axis-aligned bounds, and bigger than the ship it
is mounted on.**

### CORRECTION (same day, one iteration later): it is not a volume — it is a bad decode

The first reading of this was that `e303_wep_01` is a collision/trigger volume
the assembler wrongly draws. **That is wrong, and the evidence that settles it is
decoding the same resource from every container that holds it:**

```
Stage_S01   172 verts 110 tris   X[-24.5, 24.5] Y[0.0, 23.4] Z[-20.8, 20.8]   ← 49 × 23 × 42, a turret
Stage_S02   172 verts 110 tris   X[-1000, 600] Y[±1050]      Z[±2400]         ← 1600 × 2100 × 4800
Stage_S03…  172 verts 110 tris   49 × 23 × 42  (correct)
Stage_S08   …                    1600 × 2100 × 4800
Stage_S26   …                    1600 × 2100 × 4800
```

Same resource, same vertex and triangle count, **decoding correctly in eleven
containers and wrongly in exactly three** (`Stage_S02`, `S08`, `S26`). So:

- the **placement is legitimate** — `e303_wep_01` is a small shared turret,
  cross-mounted on `e101` and `e106`, and at its true size it is unremarkable;
- the original author's explanation of the capture's silence (**vbase dedup**)
  stands, and my "dedup would show one, not zero" objection does not survive:
  with the correct decode the turret is small, ordinary geometry;
- **the defect is in the mesh decoder**, which resolved this resource's vertex
  data differently in three containers.

The render and the symptom are real; the cause named in the first version of this
entry was not.

### The part that matters more than this one resource

**The decoder can produce wrong geometry without declining.** The
[XBG7 audit](structures/xbg7-mesh.md) counted 814 resources it *refuses* — a
visible, honest failure. This is the other kind: `e303_wep_01` decodes "fine" in
`Stage_S02` and is silently 100× too large. Screening for the signature (bounds
that are exact multiples of 50 with a span over 1000) flags 22–32 models in each
of `S02`, `S03`, `S08`, `S26`, `S27` — **but that screen also catches legitimate
`e_rou_*` composite proxies**, so it is a candidate list, not a count of bugs.

**Next:** diff the anchor scan's chosen `vb0` for `e303_wep_01` between
`Stage_S01` (correct) and `Stage_S02` (wrong) — same resource, two outcomes, so
the divergence is directly observable — then use whatever distinguishes them to
add a post-decode sanity check, so a silent 100× mis-decode becomes a decline.

### Why this was missed

`assemble_ship` treats **every** `rou_*` node in the composite as a drawable
part, and the doc comment states the cross-id mount as intended behaviour —
`"INCLUDING repeated instances and cross-id turret mounts (rou_e303_wep_01_root
×2 on the e106 hull)"` — with
`ship::tests::static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` asserting
`count("e303_wep_01") == 2`. The absence from the capture was explained away as
vbase dedup, but **dedup would show one instance, not zero**.

The test cannot catch it either: it walks the capture's parts and looks each up
in the static output, so **extra** static placements are invisible to it. That is
the same shape of gap as the earlier `include_external` hypothesis — a test that
can only fail one way.

### Scope, stated carefully

Sweeping all 335 assembled ships for the signature *ship-scale span with under
400 triangles* flags **20 ships and 58 placements** over 28 distinct resources
(`e005_ant_*`, `f001_ant_*`, `f002_bdy_*`, `f301_barrel`, `f303_body`,
`e303_wep_01`, …). **Only the `e106`/`e303_wep_01` case is proven** — by render,
by capture absence, and by geometry. Some of the others may be legitimately large
low-poly parts, and each needs the same three checks before being called a bug.

**Still true, and independent of the correction above:**
`static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` walks the capture's parts and looks each
up in the static output, so **extra static placements can never fail it**. That is
worth fixing regardless — it is the same one-way-test shape as the earlier
`include_external` hypothesis.

Also unchanged: only **two** cross-id placements exist fleet-wide (`e303_wep_01`
on `e101` ×24 and `e106` ×36, across 335 assembled ships), so cross-id mounting is
a narrow, real feature rather than a systemic guess.

---

## Resolution (2026-08-12)

`anchor_pool_mesh` took the **first** candidate in file order from a
container-global scan, so a resource could be handed another resource's block
whenever both shared `(stride, vertex count, index count)`. Fixed by anchoring
each resource near its **descriptor neighbours** (two-pass: learn, then re-anchor).

- it took inconsistency **125 → 51** with coverage unchanged, and made `e106`
  render correctly ([after](captures/e106-static-assembly-fixed.png))
- **but it flipped the `e106` twin-mirror decision**, which
  `static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` (ISO-gated, so it skips in a plain
  `cargo test`) catches against the runtime capture — so it was **reverted**
- the user-reported "capital ships assemble wrong" is therefore **diagnosed, not
  yet fixed**; see [xbg7](structures/xbg7-mesh.md) for what the real fix needs

Still open from this entry: `static_assembly_matches_runtime_capture` walks only
the capture's parts, so **extra** static placements still cannot fail it.

### 2026-08-18 — that last line was stale, and the residual gap is now closed too

**The one-way-test complaint had already been fixed** when this entry was
written down: `64d372c` (the revert commit itself) added an extras check, so
"extra static placements cannot fail it" has not been true since. Checked rather
than assumed — perturbing the expectation makes the test fail with the real disc
behind it, so it runs and is live, not a `SYLPHEED_ISO`-less skip.

**But it compared a set of resource *names*, which leaves one direction open**: a
resource placed *twice* when the capture lists it once changes no set. That is
not hypothetical — a duplicated instance is exactly what a bad node walk emits,
and the two legitimate duplicates here (`e106_eng_01`, `e303_wep_01`) are the
reason the test had to special-case counts at all. Replaced with the full
**multiset**, pinned to the e106 ground truth:

```
e106_bdy_01 1  e106_bdy_02 1  e106_bdy_03 1  e106_bdy_04 1  e106_brg_01 1
e106_eng_01 2  e106_eng_02 1  e106_wep_02_01 1  e303_wep_01 2
```

— 9 resources, 11 placements, against the capture's 8 dedup'd parts. That
subsumes the two hand-written count assertions, and it now fails on an extra
resource, a missing one, **and** a duplicated one. Refuted before believing:
declaring `e106_bdy_01` twice makes it fail, with the real multiset on the left.

**Not closed by this**, and worth keeping separate: the multiset is `e106`'s
alone. The generalisation this entry originally asked for — a per-ship table so
a regression in one class cannot hide behind `e106` passing — still needs a
runtime capture of a *second* capital ship.

**That entry's stated blocker is stale** (checked 2026-08-19): the ship capture
is in the current build — `RequestShipCaptureFrame` / `CaptureShipDrawForRE` are
in `command_processor.cc` on `auto/re-ui-draw-order`, and F10 wrote a 2.9 MB
`xenia_ship_capture_01.log` from this session's binary. No separate
`capture-ship-placement` build is needed.

**Update 2026-08-19: the mission is now REACHABLE.** With the Canary threading
fix, `tutorial_launch.sh` drives boot → title → menu → TUTORIAL and the mission
**loads and renders** (flight HUD, "Go to the box on your screen"). It then
freezes under 13 243 crash dumps, all at `0x82307128`, preceded by exactly one
guest C++ throw — identical frames 6 s apart, no new dumps, 400 % CPU. So the
blocker moved from "cannot reach a mission" to "the mission freezes". 🔴 **The cache is REFUTED as the cure** (3 runs): the
missing entry `\aab216c3\6` was real and got written, and the run with a complete
cache stormed anyway — 11 497 dumps, all `0x82307128`. ✅ **But a usable window
exists:** both post-cache runs ran the mission with exactly **2 crashes for
56–80 s** before the storm, where the first run was at 641 by t+24 s. The ship
capture needs `F10` armed *inside* that window. ✅ **Done, and the mission ran
with ZERO crashes** — first clean mission run, fully rendered. 🔴 **But the
capture contains no ship geometry**: 181 deduped draws, 180 sharing one vertex
shader, all screen-space, none 3D — against a known-good 2.9 MB capture from an
earlier session. The 8 000-draw budget was not the limit and the scene *was*
rendering. ⚠️ The "cache refuted" claim above is **overstated**: this run used
the same complete cache as `tut4` and got 0 crashes vs 11 497, so variance
dominates. 🔴 **Corrected:** nothing is broken. Ship
geometry is `stride=24 prim=4` with a large vcount (`vcount=10891` for a real
one); this capture has one `prim=4 vcount=6` quad and the 2.9 MB "known-good"
file has **no `prim=4` at all** — it is a **UI** capture (1 303 of 1 582 draws
are `stride=24 prim=13`, the UI sprite shader). The earlier "3D draws" test
counted UI sprite coordinates as 3D. The capture recorded what was on screen, and
the tutorial's opening has **no capital ship**. **What remains** is what the
capture doc always said: play into a real mission and frame a ship side-on —
gameplay driving, not a menu step, and the original was taken on HW Vulkan where
this container has lavapipe. 🔴 The resume-refused lead (1 663 on one
thread) is **REFUTED**: that thread did execute, and `KeWaitForSingleObject` /
`NtWaitForSingleObjectEx` are `kHighFrequency`, which is unlogged unless
`--log_high_frequency_kernel_calls=true` — so a parked thread is invisible and
the refusals are just the guest kicking a worker blocked on an object. Method
note: the title-loader finding rested on **host CPU time**, not log silence,
which is why it stands and this did not.

What blocked it before was **the cache-flush crash**, not navigation — measured
2026-08-19. `tools/re-capture/tutorial_launch.sh` (which retries whole boots,
because re-pressing the same title never works) gets all the way from the title
through the main menu to **DIFFICULTY** and then **SELECT DATA**, and the guest
dies there at `0x82307128` — the same `std::map`/`set` erase as the boot-time
throw, 537 stacked dumps, with `--mem_watch=false`. See
[`title-crash-stl-tree.md`](title-crash-stl-tree.md).

So a second capital-ship capture needs that crash dealt with first. Everything up
to the save-slot screen is now scripted and works, and one run got *past* it —
`SELECT DATA` reached with zero crashes, slot chosen, the game proceeding into a
cinematic — before crashing at the same `0x82307128`. The crash is intermittent
in **where** it fires, not whether, so there is no menu route around it. See
[`title-crash-stl-tree.md`](title-crash-stl-tree.md) for the end-to-end
measurement and for what has been ruled out (`--mem_watch=false`, twice).