The frame answered {"error":"internal error"} on every request. The cause was
AES-GCM failing with "Unsupported state or unable to authenticate data" — the
token in service_connections was encrypted under a key that no longer exists,
because the platform mints its encryption key on first use and does not back it
up. The same loss took slskd, memos and gitea credentials on this project's own
server earlier today.
It presented as a broken sidecar. connectionState reported `configured: true`
because a ROW exists, so the panel skipped the form and went to the frame,
where every call threw. Nothing offered a way to fix it, and the connection
form was unreachable precisely because it only appears when unconfigured.
Now a named failure. `UnreadableCredentials` is distinguished from every other
error — a database that is down keeps its own message, or a real fault would be
reported as "re-enter your token" — and the panel shows the form saying the key
changed, nothing else is lost, and the URL is still there.
Verified by the platform itself refusing to decrypt: this is the state that
machine has been in all day.
Deleting the old UI took its connection panel with it, so the plugin installed,
opened, and had nowhere to type a URL. The frame would have loaded and answered
503 on every request inside it — which reads as Gitea being down rather than as
nobody having said where Gitea is.
The panel now asks for the connection FIRST and shows the form when there is
none.
Two halves, and which one you get depends on who you are: the URL is the
owner's, one instance per server, and everyone else supplies only a token and
inherits it. Not a UI choice — service_connections stores a member's row with a
null URL for exactly this reason, so "members never see the instance URL" is a
property of the schema rather than a filter somebody has to remember.
Defaults to http://localhost:3000 and says why in the field: the sidecar
fetches SERVER-side, so localhost means the machine Officer runs on. It needs
no TLS and never leaves the box, where the public URL takes the same traffic
out and back.
officer