---
id: "bug-1272"
status: "fixed"
status_updated: "2026-09-24"
status_note: ""
component: "controller"
severity: "unknown"
timestamp: "2026-06-30T02:25:00Z"
last_seen: "2026-09-19T09:00:00Z"
occurrences: 2
files: ["src/controller/ha.c (election/PreVote path)"]
tags: ["prevote", "ha", "liveness", "chaotic-soak", "environment", "election", "bug-924", "corrected", "7.2", "fdatasync", "raft", "5.3", "in_catch_up"]
related: ["bug-924", "bug-851", "bug-1042", "bug-1060"]
fix_commits: ["bf88681"]
legacy: true
---

# bug-1272: raft-ha-core-safety 7.2 chaotic soak: round-4 'NO new primary within window (possible election…

## Description
raft-ha-core-safety 7.2 chaotic soak: round-4 'NO new primary within window (possible election stall)' after 3 overlapping kills

## Environment
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## Reproduction
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## Root cause
After 3 overlapping kills the only fully-up-to-date node is killed; the two survivors are both restarted-and-lagging (tips 15 and 11; leader was 19). Both hold the full committed prefix [1..11] (safe candidates) but their PreVote rounds repeatedly time out with no grant quorum (prospective terms frozen, never bumped). Distinct from the 5.2 spurious-failover flap (that is fixed and confirmed). Contributors: freshness mutual-denial between lagging survivors, in_catch_up-denies-all-votes (Req 2.5) with no live primary to catch up from, and/or peer vote connection not established between two nodes that only held a control channel to the dead primary.

## Fix
FIXED at unit level by task 5.3 (commit bf88681): gate the in_catch_up PreVote deny in raft_cb_vote_eligible on a LIVE primary (primary_ctrl_fd>=0 && ha_heartbeat_is_fresh), so a catching-up survivor with a dead primary can grant/win a fresh PreVote (logOk preserves Leader Completeness). CORRECTION: this in_catch_up deadlock is a real latent defect (unit RED→GREEN) but is NOT the soak's round-4 blocker. The soak stall is bug-924 (WAL fdatasync→EINVAL wedges a survivor so it stops answering PreVotes; presents as an election stall). 7.2 live acceptance is blocked on that env defect (out of scope; owned by ha-commit-durability), not on consensus.

## Verification
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## References
- Related: bug-924, bug-851, bug-1042, bug-1060