---
id: "bug-1816"
status: "fixed"
status_updated: "2026-09-24"
status_note: ""
component: "build"
severity: "unknown"
timestamp: "2026-09-15T13:05:00Z"
last_seen: "2026-09-19T09:00:00Z"
occurrences: 1
files: ["src/tools/deploy-ha.sh (port pre-flight check", "cleanup.sh generation fix", "new stop-all.sh generation", "start-all.sh wait_for_pidfile race fix)", ".claude/skills/xce-deploy-ha/SKILL.md (Step 2", "Clean restart", "Troubleshooting documentation updates)"]
tags: ["deploy-ha", "xce-deploy-ha-skill", "deploy-ha.sh", "ha-failover", "stale-process", "zombie-process", "port-conflict", "cleanup.sh", "stop-all.sh", "start-all.sh", "race-condition", "pidfile", "tooling", "user-requested", "live-verified", "found-live", "not-a-code-regression"]
related: ["bug-1814", "bug-1815"]
legacy: true
---

# bug-1816: User request, following the bug-1814/1815 mem-accounting investigation: a live 3-node HA cluster…

## Description
User request, following the bug-1814/1815 mem-accounting investigation: a live 3-node HA cluster on pc13v went through a repeated PreVote-failover storm (term climbing 2->6, standbys losing primary_ctrl_fd RDHUP repeatedly, xceadmin scheduler record status failing with 'scheduler not connected'/'too many redirects') while load was confirmed low (loadavg 0.5-1.6 on 22 cores). Root cause found live by the user: `ps axwww | grep control` on pc13v showed SIX xce_controller processes -- two full sets of ctrl-1/ctrl-2/ctrl-3 (PIDs 294848/294869/294905 and 610530/610546/610561) all bound to the identical ports (9901-9903) and identical --workdir/--certdir/--logfile paths under /tmp/xce-deploy-ha. The user's own hand-typed cleanup command (`ps axwww | grep xce-ha-deploy | ... | kill -9`) had a typo -- the actual workdir is /tmp/xce-deploy-ha/... ('xce-deploy-ha'), not 'xce-ha-deploy' (words transposed) -- so it matched nothing and silently failed to kill the first deploy's processes before a second deploy started on the same ports. User asked to enhance the xce-deploy-ha skill's shutdown-all mechanism so this class of mistake becomes structurally hard to repeat.

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

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

## Root cause
Two independent, compounding structural gaps let a hand-typed-command typo turn into a genuine HA failover storm instead of a clean, obvious failure: (1) deploy-ha.sh had NO pre-flight check that the target ports were actually free before starting a new cluster -- it would happily bind a second, fully independent 3-node Raft group to the exact same ports an existing, still-alive cluster already held, producing real cross-talk (mixed vote traffic, corrupted term/leader tracking between two unrelated groups) rather than a clean bind() failure with a clear error. (2) start.sh/start-all.sh already HAD a correct, working 'already running' guard (reads $TOP/run/*.pid, checks kill -0, refuses to start a duplicate) -- but the pre-existing cleanup.sh unconditionally did `rm -f $TOP/run/*.pid` as pure state cleanup, with NO check that the PID each file pointed to was actually dead first. Running cleanup.sh (or a fresh deploy-ha.sh invocation that regenerates it) without ALSO successfully killing the live processes first silently erased the ONLY signal that guard depends on, letting a stale process survive completely undetected by every existing safety net in the codebase. The user's specific typo was the proximate trigger, but the underlying design let a single hand-typed-command mistake cascade into two independent Raft clusters, sharing ports, cross-talking -- a much worse failure mode than the typo alone should have caused.

## Fix
FIXED (2026-09-15). Three changes to src/tools/deploy-ha.sh, live-verified end-to-end against real xce_controller/xceadmin/xcecd_virtual/xce_scheduler/xce_apiserver binaries (not just syntax-checked): (1) A port pre-flight check, added immediately after PEER_ARRAY is parsed and before ANY directory/cert/cluster.bin state is created -- for each peer's port, checks via `ss -tln` whether something is already listening; if so, prints the offending PID/process (via `ss -tlnp`, best-effort) and refuses to proceed with an actionable error (the same kill-by-name commands Step 2 documents), exiting before touching disk. Soft-skips (warns, doesn't fail) if `ss` isn't on PATH. Live-verified: a redeploy attempt against a still-running cluster's ports was correctly refused, identifying the exact blocking PIDs, and created no directory at all under the attempted $TOP. (2) cleanup.sh's generated body now stops every live PID in $TOP/run/*.pid (kill -9, with a warning to `sudo kill -9` if the real root-run worker doesn't die from a plain kill) BEFORE removing any pidfile or other state, closing the exact gap in root_cause (2) -- restoring the invariant that start.sh/start-all.sh's own guard depends on: no pidfile is ever removed while pointing at a still-alive process. stop-all.sh (new, generated alongside start.sh/cleanup.sh) is the same pidfile-based stop logic as a standalone script that leaves state untouched -- the canonical, typo-proof way to stop everything a specific deploy started, since it reads that deploy's own tracked PIDs instead of matching process names/paths by hand. (3) Found and fixed a related race while live-testing (1) and (2) together: start-all.sh launched worker/scheduler/apiserver via backgrounded `setsid nohup ... &` with no wait for each to actually write its own pidfile before declaring itself done -- running cleanup.sh/stop-all.sh immediately after start-all.sh returned could catch worker/scheduler BEFORE their pidfile existed, defeating the very fix in (2)/(3) for those two components specifically (reproduced live: cleanup.sh correctly stopped ctrl-1/2/3 but left worker-1/scheduler running with their pidfiles already wiped -- the identical zombie-process class this whole fix targets, via a narrower timing window instead of an operator typo). Added a small wait_for_pidfile() poll (up to 5s, 0.2s interval) after each of the three backgrounded launches; start-all.sh now only reports 'done' once every component it started has a live pidfile on disk (or warns by name if one didn't appear in time). Re-verified live after this fix: cleanup.sh run IMMEDIATELY after start-all.sh returned correctly stopped all 6 processes (3 controllers + worker + scheduler + apiserver), confirmed via `ps`/`ss` showing nothing left running and no listeners on the deployed ports. SKILL.md updated: Step 2 now prefers a known deploy's own stop-all.sh over the hand-typed blanket kill (documents exactly why, citing this incident), Clean restart section documents cleanup.sh's new stop-then-wipe behavior and stop-all.sh as the no-wipe alternative, and two new Troubleshooting rows cover the port-pre-flight error message and the 'inexplicable HA failover despite low load, multiple PIDs per role in logs' symptom pattern directly, matching this incident.

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

## References
- Related: bug-1814, bug-1815