fix: grpclib error handling — wrong exception type + no transport recovery (DEVOP-595)#66
fix: grpclib error handling — wrong exception type + no transport recovery (DEVOP-595)#66gh-allora wants to merge 6 commits into
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…ct.toml Pre-fix: 'dev' branch was unbuildable. `uv sync` / `pip install -e .` both fail with: ValueError: Dependency #7 of field `project.dependencies` is invalid: Expected semicolon (after name with no version specifier) or end requests * ^ The bad entry was introduced by dependabot PR #64 ('Bump requests from 2.32.4 to 2.33.0'); the merge ended up with TWO 'requests' entries — line 32 'requests *' (invalid PEP 508 — a bare asterisk is not a valid version specifier) and line 39 'requests' (well-formed and equivalent to what was intended). Removing the broken line 32 leaves the well-formed one in place; no behaviour change. This prep commit is bundled into the fix/grpc-error-handling branch because the editable install needs to succeed before any test in this PR can be run. It's deliberately isolated as its own commit so it can be cherry-picked or reverted independently of the rest of the gRPC error handling work. NOTE: 'requests' is still also referenced transitively via 'requests-async' on line 42, but 'requests-async' itself is a discontinued package (no release since 2019). A broader cleanup of the requests/requests-async/ aiohttp dependency situation should be tracked separately.
…ad code)
tx_manager.py imported 'grpc' (the grpcio library) and caught grpc.RpcError
in two places — _estimate_gas and _get_tx. But the gRPC channel underneath
is grpclib.client.Channel, from the unrelated 'grpclib' library. grpclib's
exception types (GRPCError, StreamTerminatedError, ProtocolError) all
inherit directly from Exception and are NOT subclasses of grpc.RpcError.
Result: both except blocks were silent dead code for the entire lifetime
of the SDK.
Practical impact:
- _estimate_gas: 'account sequence mismatch' detection during gas
simulation never fired. Real grpclib errors fell into the bare
'except Exception' below it and re-raised without being converted to
AccountSequenceMismatchError. The retry loop in _attempt_submissions
then never refreshed the sequence number for the next attempt.
- _get_tx: TxNotFoundError detection 'worked' only by accident — the
bare 'except Exception' fallback's substring match on str(e) caught it
because str(GRPCError) happens to contain both 'tx' and 'not found'.
A genuinely tx-not-found-only check (e.g. 'tx' in details and 'not
found' in details) was load-bearing on this accident.
Bonus latent bug: if anything had actually entered the grpc.RpcError
block, 'e.details()' would have crashed with TypeError. grpclib's
GRPCError.details is an attribute (defaulting to None), not a method.
The fix uses .message instead, which is the correct accessor for the
textual payload from the server.
Tests added: tests/test_tx_manager_grpclib_errors.py
- 3 real-path tests for _get_tx (not-found conversion, propagation,
happy path) using AsyncMock with grpclib.GRPCError side effects
- 2 regression assertions pinning down grpclib semantics so a future
'simplify the import' change doesn't accidentally re-introduce the
bug:
* GRPCError is NOT a subclass of grpc.RpcError
* GRPCError.message is an attribute (str), not a callable
…rt failures
Adds explicit handling for grpclib transport-layer failures in the
_attempt_submissions retry loop. Pre-fix: any grpclib.StreamTerminatedError
or grpclib.GRPCError(Status.UNAVAILABLE) mid-broadcast fell through to the
bare 'except Exception' branch, which set the future to the error and
returned — zero retries, no recovery.
Changes:
1. New GRPCTransportError exception class. Raised when we observe one of
the four transport-class failures (stream-terminated, UNAVAILABLE,
'connection reset by peer', 'unexpected EOF'). Same scenarios that
trigger node-switching in the Go offchain-node fix.
2. New _is_grpclib_transport_error(exc) helper. Classifies an arbitrary
exception as a transport failure (positive: StreamTerminatedError,
UNAVAILABLE, the substring set above; negative: NOT_FOUND, sequence
mismatch, permission errors, RuntimeError, etc.). Single source of
truth for what counts as transport-class.
3. _estimate_gas and _get_tx now wrap grpclib transport errors as
GRPCTransportError before re-raising. Non-transport grpclib errors
keep their existing semantics (NOT_FOUND → TxNotFoundError, account
sequence mismatch → AccountSequenceMismatchError, others propagate).
4. _attempt_submissions retry loop now has two new branches:
- 'except GRPCTransportError': retry within the existing retry budget,
call _on_transport_failure() between attempts (the actual reconnect
wiring lands in the next commit).
- 'except (GRPCError, StreamTerminatedError)' defensive net: catches
grpclib errors that escaped from the broadcast/auth_info path
without going through the GRPCTransportError wrapper. Re-classifies
via _is_grpclib_transport_error and routes to the same retry
behaviour, or falls through to the existing fail-the-future
handling for non-transport flavours.
5. _on_transport_failure() hook added as a no-op stub. Commit 3 will
replace this with an actual channel close-and-redial. The no-op emits
a WARNING-level log so the dead-channel-retry situation is at least
visible until the wiring lands.
Tests added (5 new in tests/test_tx_manager_grpclib_errors.py):
- get_tx converts UNAVAILABLE to GRPCTransportError
- get_tx converts 'connection reset by peer' to GRPCTransportError
- get_tx converts StreamTerminatedError to GRPCTransportError
- get_tx still re-raises non-transport non-not-found errors untouched
(test now uses PERMISSION_DENIED instead of UNAVAILABLE)
- _is_grpclib_transport_error classification: 4 positive cases (incl.
StreamTerminatedError and all 3 substring forms) and 5 negative
cases pinning the boundary (NOT_FOUND, sequence mismatch, permission
denied, RuntimeError, plain Exception)
All 13 existing+new unit tests pass. Integration tests not run (require
testnet API access).
…ecovery hook
Replaces the no-op stub from the previous commit with the actual
close-and-redial logic. When a transport-class failure is detected in
the retry loop, TxManager now invokes a callback that:
1. Closes the current grpclib.Channel (best-effort; closing a dead
channel can itself raise — caught and debug-logged so it doesn't
mask the original failure)
2. Dials a fresh Channel against the same host/port/ssl settings
3. Constructs fresh QueryStub instances bound to the new channel
4. Mutates the TxManager's stub references in place
(tx_client, auth_client, bank_client, feemarket_client) so the
existing TxManager instance keeps working without callers needing
to know anything reconnected
Implementation:
* client.py: factored the stub-construction logic out of __init__
into _build_clients(). __init__ now calls it once; _reconnect_grpc()
calls it again on demand. Splitting the logic keeps the initial-
setup path and the reconnect path on a single code path so they
can't drift.
* client.py: new async _reconnect_grpc() method. REST-protocol-aware
(no-op when the configured URL is REST-only — REST uses pooled HTTP
and doesn't have the same dead-channel problem).
* client.py: AlloraRPCClient passes self._reconnect_grpc as the
reconnect_callback when constructing TxManager.
* tx_manager.py: __init__ now accepts reconnect_callback. The hook
swallows exceptions from the callback itself — a failed reconnect
should not cascade into a failed submission, since the retry loop
is going to try again anyway.
Concurrency note: TxManager's stub references are reassigned without a
lock. This is safe under the current design because submit_transaction
is sequential per TxManager instance (no parallel _attempt_submissions
loops on the same manager). If that invariant ever changes, the stub
swap will need to move under a lock or be made copy-on-write.
Stub reference caveat: callers that captured a direct Stub reference
BEFORE a reconnect (e.g. `my_stub = client.tx_manager.tx_client` then
later `await my_stub.broadcast_tx(...)`) will still hit the dead
channel. New invocations through self.tx / self.bank / etc. always hit
the latest channel because the Client* wrappers reference TxManager /
query_client by attribute, and we mutate those in place. Documented
in the _reconnect_grpc docstring.
Tests added (3 new):
- _on_transport_failure invokes the configured callback exactly once
- _on_transport_failure is a clean no-op when no callback is configured
- _on_transport_failure swallows callback failures (does not propagate
a reconnect-failed exception to the retry loop)
All 16 unit tests pass.
…_status Two related changes: 1. Promote retry-attempt logs from debug to warning. The retry loop in _attempt_submissions logs at debug when retrying on OutOfGasError, InsufficientFeesError, AccountSequenceMismatchError, and TxTimeoutError. At debug, these were effectively invisible in production — alerting systems and operators couldn't see when a transaction was struggling and retrying. They could only see the final outcome (success or final error). Warning is the right level: we are not yet at error (there are retries remaining and they may succeed) but we are also not in the happy path. This mirrors the Go-side fix where the per-retry log in QueryDataWithRetry went info → warning. The final-attempt logs (already at error level) remain unchanged. The GRPCTransportError retry path added in the previous commit already logs at warning, so this brings the rest of the retry branches into consistency. 2. Surface grpclib.Status name in simulation error logs. When grpclib raises GRPCError, the .status field carries the semantic class of the failure (NOT_FOUND, UNAVAILABLE, INVALID_ARGUMENT, PERMISSION_DENIED, etc.). Including the status name as a structured-ish field (grpc_status=<name>) lets dashboards group failures by class without having to substring-match against the freeform error message. Mirrors what the Go-side fix does with HTTP status codes in triageHTTPStatusError — same intent (make the failure self-describing so alerting rules don't have to be clever). All 16 unit tests still pass.
The earlier prep commit (`fix(deps): remove invalid 'requests *' PEP 508 specifier`) edited pyproject.toml but didn't refresh uv.lock. CI on PR #66 runs `uv sync --locked` which refused with: The lockfile at `uv.lock` needs to be updated, but --locked was provided. To update the lockfile, run `uv lock`. This commit is the result of running `uv lock` against the updated pyproject.toml — a single-line removal of the duplicate `requests` entry from uv.lock's requires-dist section. No behavioral change. Caught by self-review of PR #66 — would have failed CI on every push otherwise.
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Self-review of fix/grpc-error-handling
Reviewed by Hermes Agent at author's request. Verdict: conditional approve — one CI-breaking bug just pushed as a fix commit (11a3c40), and one concurrency concern below worth addressing before merge. Other findings are non-blocking.
🔧 Just fixed (was blocking CI)
uv.lockout of sync withpyproject.toml— the prep commit2fa9f9bremoved the"requests *"line frompyproject.tomlbut didn't runuv lock. CI runsuv sync --lockedwhich refused withThe lockfile at uv.lock needs to be updated. All 8 matrix jobs failed at the install step before any test ran. Pushed11a3c40 fix(deps): regenerate uv.lock after pyproject.toml changeto address. Self-review caught this — would have failed CI on every push otherwise.
⚠️ Warnings
-
src/allora_sdk/rpc_client/client.py:147 —
_reconnect_grpchas no lock around it. If two coroutines simultaneously hit transport failures and both invokereconnect_callback(e.g. two concurrentsubmit_transactioncalls or a stalewait_for_txpoll racing with a new submission), both will try toclose()the sameself.grpc_clientand then both call_build_clients(). Thetry/exceptaroundold.close()will swallow the double-close, but_build_clientswill run twice and the second run will replace the freshly-dialed channel from the first. The result is a dangling channel that's never closed. Suggested fix: wrap_reconnect_grpcbody in anasyncio.Lock(or use a sentinel likeself._reconnecting = Truewith anasyncio.Event). -
src/allora_sdk/rpc_client/client.py:181 (docstring) — "callers that captured
client.tx,client.banketc. will continue holding the new stub" is not quite right. The TxManager swap works because we mutate attributes on the existing instance, but theAuthClient,BankClient, etc wrappers inself.auth/self.bank/ etc are replaced wholesale each time_build_clients()runs. Anyone who didb = client.bankbefore reconnect holds the oldBankClientwrapper, which holds the oldbank_querystub bound to the dead channel. The docstring should distinguish: "new invocations throughclient.tx.broadcast_tx(...)work because TxManager attributes are rebound; new invocations throughclient.bank.balance(...)work because we replaceclient.bank; callers that captured a wrapper or stub reference before the reconnect will hit the dead channel." Or — better — make the non-Tx clients also mutate-in-place by extracting the sametx_manager-style attribute-rebind pattern for them.
💡 Suggestions
-
src/allora_sdk/rpc_client/tx_manager.py:421 — The defensive
except (GRPCError, StreamTerminatedError)branch in_attempt_submissionsis wider than the GRPCTransportError it complements. Ifbroadcast_txever raises aGRPCError(Status.NOT_FOUND)orGRPCError(Status.INVALID_ARGUMENT)directly (not a transport class), the current code falls to_is_grpclib_transport_error(err) == False, fails the future, and returns. That's the same behavior as the pre-fixexcept Exceptionso no regression — but it's worth a comment that the non-transport grpclib path here is the intended terminal state, not an oversight. -
src/allora_sdk/rpc_client/tx_manager.py:_pre_flight_checks — Not changed in this PR, but worth flagging adjacent-to-the-fix:
_pre_flight_checksswallowsExceptionat debug level (logger.debug(f"Pre-flight check warning: {e}")). When the channel is dead, the pre-flight call will hit the same transport error and silently log-and-continue. The actual transport-failure trigger then happens in_build_and_broadcastand goes through the retry path correctly — but the silent-swallow in pre-flight is an unrelated landmine. Worth a follow-up to either re-raise transport errors out of pre-flight or at minimum bump the log level on transport failures. -
src/allora_sdk/rpc_client/tx_manager.py:139 —
(exc.message or "").lower()—exc.messageis typed asstrin grpclib (notOptional[str]), so theor ""defense is redundant. Either trust the type and writeexc.message.lower(), or update the comment to note we're being defensive againstNonereturns from older grpclib versions. -
tests/test_tx_manager_grpclib_errors.py:test_grpclib_error_does_not_inherit_from_grpc_rpcerror — Importing
grpc(thegrpciolibrary) in this test pulls it into the test environment even though the production code doesn't use it.grpciois currently listed as a dep viacosmpy(transitively) so the import happens to work, but a future cleanup ofcosmpy/grpciocould break this test silently. Worth apytest.importorskip("grpc")guard or a comment explaining why we deliberately need both grpc libraries available for this regression assertion.
✅ Looks good
- The dead-code fix itself is clean. Replacing
except grpc.RpcErrorwithexcept grpclib.GRPCErroris a one-line semantic correction..details()→.messageis the correct API per grpclib's source. Two regression tests (test_grpclib_error_does_not_inherit_from_grpc_rpcerrorandtest_grpclib_error_message_attribute_is_string_not_method) pin down the library boundary so a future refactor can't silently re-introduce the bug. _is_grpclib_transport_errorhas both positive AND negative test cases. Notably the"Unavailable alone is NOT a transport error"case asserts the boundary against parseable HTTP-status errors — same shape as the Go-side review.- Reconnect callback indirection is correct. TxManager doesn't own the channel; injecting the callback at construction keeps the dependency direction sane and means tests can use a real TxManager with a fake reconnect (
test_on_transport_failure_invokes_reconnect_callback,test_on_transport_failure_swallows_reconnect_errors). _on_transport_failureswallows callback errors. A failed reconnect (DNS/TCP/TLS) returning to the retry loop with a likely-still-dead channel is correct — the retry loop will retry, and if the network is genuinely down the next attempt will fail too and the retry budget will exhaust naturally. Tested.- Log-level uplift is consistent with the Go-side fix: retry-attempt logs went
debug → warning, final failures stayerror. Existing alerting keyed onlevel=errornow sees forecaster transport failures. pyproject.tomlprep commit is correctly isolated as its own commit so it can be cherry-picked or reverted independently.
Self-review at author's request. Recommended action: address the asyncio.Lock concurrency concern in _reconnect_grpc and tighten the _reconnect_grpc docstring re: which captured references survive a reconnect. Other suggestions are non-blocking.
Fix grpclib error handling — wrong exception type + no transport recovery (DEVOP-595)
Parent diagnostic: DEVOP-593
Fixes: DEVOP-595
Sibling PR: see allora-offchain-node
fix/rpc-silent-stall(DEVOP-594)What this fixes
Same class of silent-stall problem the Go offchain-node had, but worse: the Python SDK never had a working RPC error-handling path to begin with.
Bug 1:
except grpc.RpcErroris dead codetx_manager.pyimportedgrpc(thegrpciolibrary) and caughtgrpc.RpcErrorin two places —_estimate_gasand_get_tx. But the gRPC channel underneath isgrpclib.client.Channelfrom the unrelatedgrpcliblibrary.grpclib.GRPCErrorandgrpclib.StreamTerminatedErrorinherit directly fromException, NOT fromgrpc.RpcError.Result: both
except grpc.RpcErrorblocks were silent dead code for the entire lifetime of the SDK._estimate_gas: account-sequence-mismatch detection during gas simulation never fired. Real grpclib errors fell into the bareexcept Exceptionbelow and re-raised without being converted toAccountSequenceMismatchError. The retry loop never refreshed the sequence number for the next attempt._get_tx:TxNotFoundErrordetection "worked" only by accident — the bareexcept Exceptionfallback's substring match onstr(e)caught it becausestr(GRPCError)happens to contain both"tx"and"not found". Load-bearing accident.Bonus latent bug: if anything had actually entered the
grpc.RpcErrorblock,e.details()would have crashed withTypeError.grpclib'sGRPCError.detailsis an attribute (defaulting toNone), not a method.Bug 2: No retry on transport failure
The retry loop in
_attempt_submissionscatches specific cosmos-level errors but the bareexcept Exceptionon line 340 sets the future to the error and returns. Onegrpclib.StreamTerminatedErrororGRPCError(UNAVAILABLE)mid-broadcast kills the whole tx with zero retries and no channel re-dial.Bug 3:
grpclib.Channelhas no keepalive, no reconnect, no poolVerified empirically against
grpclib==0.4.8:When Cloudflare half-closes the HTTP/2 stream, the Channel object is dead and there's no recovery — unless the caller dials a new one.
Pre-existing build break (prep commit)
pyproject.tomlondevwas unbuildable: dependabot PR #64 introduced"requests *"which is invalid PEP 508 (a bare*is not a version specifier).uv sync/pip install -e .both failed. The same dep was also listed correctly on a different line, so just removing the broken entry restores the build. Isolated as its own commit so it can be cherry-picked or reverted independently.Changes (5 commits)
pyproject.tomlsomake devworks.import grpcwithfrom grpclib.exceptions import GRPCError. Fixe.details()→e.message. Add regression tests pinning downGRPCError ∉ grpc.RpcErrorandGRPCError.messageis a string attribute (not callable).GRPCTransportError+ retry-loop handler:StreamTerminatedError,GRPCError(UNAVAILABLE), orGRPCErrorwhose message contains"connection reset by peer","connection timed out", or"unexpected EOF"._is_grpclib_transport_error(exc)classifier — single source of truth for what counts as transport-class. Mirrorslib/errors.go isGRPCTransportError()from the Go-side fix._attempt_submissionsretry loop gains anexcept GRPCTransportErrorbranch that retries within the existing retry budget, calling_on_transport_failure()between attempts.GRPCError/StreamTerminatedErrorthat escapes frombroadcast_txoraccount_infopaths.AlloraRPCClientnow has_reconnect_grpc()that closes the deadgrpclib.Channel, dials a fresh one, and re-binds all stub references — includingTxManager.tx_client,auth_client,bank_client,feemarket_client— in place so the existing instances keep working.TxManager.__init__accepts an optionalreconnect_callback. The reconnect path goes through a factored-out_build_clients()method so the initial-setup path and reconnect path can't drift.debugtowarning(so dashboards see the retries, not just the final outcome).grpc_status=<Status.name>added to simulation error logs so dashboards can group by class without substring-matching.Verification done locally
3 pre-existing tests + 13 new tests across:
_get_txconversion paths (NOT_FOUND →TxNotFoundError; UNAVAILABLE →GRPCTransportError;connection reset by peer→GRPCTransportError;StreamTerminatedError→GRPCTransportError; non-transport non-not-found propagates untouched; happy path)_is_grpclib_transport_errorclassifier (4 positive + 5 negative cases)_on_transport_failurehook (invokes callback exactly once; clean no-op without callback; swallows callback failures)GRPCError ∉ grpc.RpcErrorandGRPCError.messageisstrnot callableIntegration tests not run (require testnet API access).
Stub reference caveat
Callers that captured a direct
Stubreference BEFORE a reconnect (e.g.my_stub = client.tx_manager.tx_client; ...; await my_stub.broadcast_tx(...)) will still hit the dead channel. New invocations throughclient.tx,client.bank, etc. always hit the latest channel because theClient*wrappers referenceTxManager/query_clientby attribute and the reconnect path mutates those in place. Documented inAlloraRPCClient._reconnect_grpcdocstring.Concurrency note
Stub references on
TxManagerare reassigned without a lock. Safe under the current design becausesubmit_transactionis sequential perTxManagerinstance (no parallel_attempt_submissionsloops on the same manager). If that invariant ever changes, the stub swap will need to move under a lock or be made copy-on-write.Out of scope (tracked in parent DEVOP-593)
AlloraNetworkConfig(deferred —cosmpy.NetworkConfigonly accepts a single URL)grpclibtogrpcio(deferred — would require regenerating all betterproto-based client stubs; the proto pipeline is fragile)pyproject.tomlcleanup (triple-listedrequests, discontinuedrequests-asyncdep)Recommended merge order
Merge the Go-side fix first (DEVOP-594). Validate on a testnet canary pod for 24h. If the diagnosis is correct, the same pattern works for this SDK and we can merge with confidence.
Summary by cubic
Fixes gRPC error handling in the Python SDK by catching
grpclibexceptions, classifying transport failures, and auto‑reconnecting the channel to retry broadcasts, preventing silent stalls and mid‑broadcast failures (DEVOP-595). Also removes an invalidrequests *dependency and updatesuv.lockto restore installs and CI.Bug Fixes
grpclib.GRPCError/StreamTerminatedErrorinstead ofgrpc.RpcError; use.message(not.details()).GRPCTransportErrorand_is_grpclib_transport_error(...)to treat UNAVAILABLE, stream resets, timeouts, and unexpected EOF as transport failures._attempt_submissionsand callAlloraRPCClient._reconnect_grpc()to redialgrpclib.Channeland rebind stubs in place.grpc_status=<Status>in error logs for easier triage.TxNotFoundErrorand restore sequence‑mismatch handling during simulation.uv.lockafter removing the invalid dependency to keepuv sync --lockedgreen.Migration
client.tx,client.bank, etc., which always point to the current channel.Written for commit 11a3c40. Summary will update on new commits. Review in cubic