terminal restore was not observed before the deadline

Error message

terminal restore was not observed before the deadline

What it means

After issuing SW_RESTORE, toggle_pin waits up to 800ms via wait_for for the window's maximized state to clear. If the timeout elapses without observing !maximized, it bails: the restore was requested but never took effect, so saved geometry cannot be trusted.

Solutions

Retry the toggle; transient scheduling delays commonly exceed the 800ms deadline under load.
Manually restore (un-maximize) the terminal, then re-run toggle_pin so the restore branch is skipped.
If this recurs, increase the restore wait deadline in window_control.rs (toggle_pin).

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

match toggle_pin() {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("not observed before the deadline") => retry_once_after_delay(),
    other => other?,
}

Prevention

Retry under light system load; the 800ms deadline is tight.
Treat repeated deadline misses as a signal to raise the timeout.
Don't invoke toggle during heavy window-manager activity.
Fall back to non-pinned mode if restore cannot be confirmed.

When it happens

Trigger: ShowWindowAsync(SW_RESTORE) reported success but wait_for(host, 800ms, |observed| !observed.maximized) timed out — the window stayed maximized (or polling couldn't observe the change) before the deadline.

Common situations: Slow or busy window manager delaying the restore; the terminal re-maximizes immediately (window-management policy); heavy system load making the 800ms deadline too tight; polling GetWindowPlacement returning stale maximized state.

Understand the failure class

Background: Request timed out: what client-side request timeouts mean across libraries (Request timed out, TIMED_OUT, APITimeoutError) — this error's family across 39 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@73e0f67d83 (2026-09-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/79939f469793e12b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/tui/src/tui/window_control.rs:410

            // Retire geometry only when the original owner is gone. A failed
            // observation must preserve it for the next restore attempt.
            *state = State::new();
            PINNED.store(false, Ordering::Release);
            return Err(error);
        }
        let before = observe(host)?;
        if !restoring {
            state.host = Some(host);
            state.was_maximized = before.maximized;
            state.saved_rect = Some(before.rect);
            if before.maximized {
                if !unsafe { ShowWindowAsync(host.hwnd()?, SW_RESTORE) }.as_bool() {
                    bail!("terminal restore request was rejected");
                }
                if !wait_for(host, Duration::from_millis(800), |observed| {
                    !observed.maximized
                })? {
                    bail!("terminal restore was not observed before the deadline");
                }
                state.saved_rect = Some(observe(host)?.rect);
            }
        }

        let saved = state
            .saved_rect
            .context("terminal restore geometry is unavailable")?;
        let target = Observation {
            topmost: !restoring,
            maximized: restoring && state.was_maximized,
            rect: if restoring {
                saved
            } else {
                RECT {
                    left: saved.left,
                    top: saved.top,
                    right: saved.left + PINNED_W,

View on GitHub (pinned to 73e0f67d83)