Last night's fully-failed backup run (0/20, "repository not found" on
every service) showed the real gap: categorize_error() clearly saw real
content in $_ERR (it matched a specific pattern, not the generic
fallback), but log_raw_error()'s separate re-read of the same file moments
later came back empty on every single failure — so the raw-error logging
added earlier this session produced nothing when it mattered most.
Fixed by reading $_ERR into a variable exactly once per failure and
passing that string to both categorize_error() and log_raw_error(),
instead of two independent file reads. Verified against a mock harness
reproducing the same call pattern (three simulated failures in a loop,
single shared error file) — both the categorized reason and the raw
stderr text now come through on every iteration.
Doesn't explain why last night's repo access failed in the first place
(disk and mount checks came back clean) — but the next time it happens,
this will actually surface the real kopia error instead of losing it.
Claude
63774e0500