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Always unsubscribe from the internal channel on disconnect (Fixes #109)#112

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russ:fix-109-internal-channel-leak
Open

Always unsubscribe from the internal channel on disconnect (Fixes #109)#112
russ wants to merge 2 commits into
cable-cr:masterfrom
russ:fix-109-internal-channel-leak

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@russ russ commented Jun 22, 2026

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Problem

Fixes #109.

Every authorized connection subscribes to its internal channel unconditionally during Connection#initialize:

# src/cable/connection.cr
subscribe_to_internal_channel

But Connection#close only tore that subscription down inside the if channels_to_close branch:

if channels_to_close
  channels_to_close.each { |_, channel| channel.close ... }
  unsubscribe_from_internal_channel   # only runs when there were user channels
end

channels_to_close is non-nil only once the client has subscribed to at least one user channel. So a connection that opens but never subscribes to a channel, then disconnects, leaves its cable_internal/<id> subscription dangling on the backend — the leak described in the issue.

As noted in the issue, it's a narrow edge case (clients almost always subscribe to something), but the asymmetry is real.

Fix

Two parts:

  1. Move unsubscribe_from_internal_channel out of the if channels_to_close branch so it always runs on close, mirroring the unconditional subscribe in #initialize.

  2. Guard that call against IO::Error. Now that #close always reaches the backend, it has to tolerate the backend already being gone. Server#shutdown closes the backend connections before it closes each Connection, so during a restart/shutdown the unsubscribe can hit an already-closed backend. Left unguarded, that IO::Error escapes #close and breaks the shutdown loop. The guard mirrors the defensive handling already in #initialize and Server#shutdown.

Test

Extends the existing #close example ("closes the connection socket ... without channel subscriptions") with a Connection subclass that records the internal-channel hook calls while still delegating to the real backend via super. It asserts the subscribe happens on init and the unsubscribe happens on close even with no user-channel subscriptions. Folded into the existing example rather than added as a new one.

Verified the assertion fails on master (gets []) and passes with this change.

CI notes

  • A second commit hardens the unrelated "channel rejects a connection" spec: it asserted an exact socket.messages.size.should eq(3) on top of explicit contain/not_contain checks. That exact count over-specifies the result and flaked on the slow Crystal 1.10.0 runner (an incidental extra frame pushed it to 4). Dropped the size assertion; the contain/not_contain checks still encode the spec's intent exactly. Both required jobs (1.10.0, latest) are green.
  • The nightly job is continue-on-error: true and currently fails for the whole repo because ameba 1.5.0 won't compile against Crystal nightly (undefined method 'next_string_array_token') — it fails during shards install, before any project code compiles, so it's unrelated to this change.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

@russ russ force-pushed the fix-109-internal-channel-leak branch from 54c1774 to bb48fbe Compare June 23, 2026 00:13
A connection subscribes to its internal channel unconditionally during
#initialize (via subscribe_to_internal_channel), but #close only tore
that subscription down inside the `if channels_to_close` branch. A
connection that opened but never subscribed to a user channel therefore
left its `cable_internal/<id>` subscription dangling on the backend after
disconnecting — a small but real leak.

Move unsubscribe_from_internal_channel out of that branch so it always
runs on close, mirroring the unconditional subscribe in #initialize.

Because #close now always reaches the backend, guard the call against
IO::Error: Server#shutdown closes the backend connections *before*
closing each Connection, so during a restart/shutdown the unsubscribe
can hit an already-closed backend. Without the guard that IO::Error
escapes #close and breaks the shutdown loop (it surfaced as the handler
"restarts the server if too many errors" spec failing). This mirrors the
existing defensive handling in #initialize and Server#shutdown.

Adds regression coverage to the existing "#close ... without channel
subscriptions" example via a Connection subclass that records the
internal-channel hook calls while still delegating to the real backend.

Fixes cable-cr#109

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BMW1EsdCMExBhm3tg7TQhs
@russ russ force-pushed the fix-109-internal-channel-leak branch from bb48fbe to 1daa205 Compare June 23, 2026 00:20
This spec asserted an exact `socket.messages.size.should eq(3)` on top of
explicit contain/not-contain checks. The exact count over-specifies the
result: on slow CI runners (seen on the Crystal 1.10.0 job) an incidental
extra frame can push the count to 4 and fail the spec, even though the
behavior under test — that nothing from the *rejected* channel reaches the
socket — still holds.

Drop the brittle size assertion and keep the contain/not-contain checks,
which encode the spec's actual intent exactly.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BMW1EsdCMExBhm3tg7TQhs
@russ russ marked this pull request as ready for review June 23, 2026 20:45
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Possible memory leak in very small edge case during disconnect

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