Talon
f3ac779bf4
Media died silently whenever a client's source address changed. The relay bound a peer's endpoint once and refused to move it, and the client stopped offering its binding token after the first bind, so a Wi-Fi/cellular handover stranded the session in both directions. Add an authenticated Rebind media frame: the binding token travels in the clear for peer lookup only, and the AEAD tag over header and token plus the peer's existing replay window are what authorize the move, so a captured rebind cannot be replayed to redirect someone else's downlink. The client rebuilds its UDP socket instead of retrying on one still pinned to a vanished interface. Nothing judged the control connection live: pings were sent and pongs ignored, so a blackholed TCP path went unnoticed for minutes while the UI showed a live session. Treat any server traffic as liveness and fail the connection when it stops, which drives the existing reconnect. The receive jitter buffer had lost its depth floor, so a channel without FEC or DRED played out with no buffer at all and ordinary reordering became concealment. Restore a one-frame floor, observe every arrival rather than only accepted ones — a shallow buffer was rejecting the late arrivals that should have deepened it — and allow playout to hold a frame so depth can follow a degrading link. A stalled consumer now sheds the oldest queued packet instead of refusing the live talkspurt. Add a deterministic network-impairment simulation covering bursty loss, jitter, reordering, duplication, outages and a stalled consumer, a handover test against a real relay, a replay test for the rebind path, and a blackholed control connection driven through a freezable TCP proxy.
4.2 KiB
VoiceCat status
Updated: 2026-09-22
Current state
VoiceCat's supported implementation is .NET 10. The managed protocol, crypto, TLS, server, CLI, client state, audio engine, Windows client, macOS client, and iOS client are implemented. Retired implementations and compatibility projects have been removed; this tree contains only the supported product and its required native media boundaries.
The source-of-truth layout is:
proto/voicecat.proto— wire schema.src/— protocol, crypto, codec/DSP bindings, server, client core, audio, and CLI.tests/VoiceCat.Tests/— managed behavior and integration tests.clients/windows/— WinForms application over the managed core.clients/apple/— AppKit and UIKit applications over the managed core.native/media/andnative/rnnoise/— required Opus/RNNoise shim and vendored RNNoise.native/apple/broadcast/— required ReplayKit upload extension and shared ring producer.
The physical-device iOS voice path now supports ReplayKit fallback, stable Apple VPIO voice-chat capture using a paced 20 ms handoff, and true built-in stereo microphone capture. Stereo was verified on an iPhone 16 Pro Max with a two-channel AVAudioEngine input and distinct left/right samples; the managed Apple binding requires native use of its otherwise-unmapped stereo polar pattern constant.
The iOS user list now opens a remote-user detail view with independent tuning for each active audio stream. Private messages are grouped into per-user conversations with direct access to the same user and audio controls.
The media path now survives changing networks. A client whose source address changes proves
possession of its media key from the new address with an authenticated Rebind frame and the
relay moves its endpoint, instead of the session dying silently in both directions; the client
rebuilds its UDP socket rather than retrying on one pinned to a vanished interface. The control
connection is judged live by server traffic rather than assumed live, so a blackholed TCP path
is detected in 30 s instead of waiting minutes for the OS. The receive jitter buffer keeps a
one-frame depth floor, measures late and reordered arrivals, and can deepen mid-call, and a
stalled consumer now costs bounded audio rather than the live talkspurt.
SQLite schema v4 persists DRED and the channel packet-loss mode. Manual loss remains the default; automatic Fast/Balanced/Stable modes measure each sender's authenticated UDP uplink at the server, cap the applied Opus hint at 30%, and feed it back over TLS.
Release gates
- Run real multi-person calls on Windows, macOS, and physical iOS hardware, including adaptive 20/40/60 ms buffering, duration-aware DRED/FEC, automatic packet-loss feedback, and mismatched input/output endpoints.
- Complete NVDA and VoiceOver navigation/announcement passes.
- Verify iOS remote-user tuning and private-conversation navigation with VoiceOver, including multiple streams, users without active streams, and users who disconnect while a view is open.
- Exercise iOS background/lock, interruption, Bluetooth, route-change, ReplayKit, and iOS 27
ScreenCaptureKit paths on devices. The background/lock gate keeps a call active for 15+ minutes
backgrounded and screen-locked with no periodic glitches and flat
VC_AUDIOfeedDrops/starvedcounters (the render callback now paces the mix and the 20 ms capture handoff, and a watchdog rebuilds a graph that stops calling back). Take a Siri or phone-call interruption while backgrounded and confirm audio resumes without foregrounding. Complete a 30-minute iOS call and Wi-Fi/cellular switching with voice restoration (the switch is covered by simulation inNetworkImpairmentTests; hardware confirms the real route change), plus extended mono/stereo/voice-chat switching while joined. Verify Windows desktop/per-app stereo sharing. - Complete Developer ID signing/notarization. The iOS host and ReplayKit extension have been distribution-signed and packaged locally; upload the IPA for Apple's server-side validation.
- Run the published Linux container and a 30-minute-or-longer server soak.
Working rule
Keep this file short. It records only current state and open release gates. Git history is the implementation diary.