diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index 2eb09c3..c72f0f6 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -76,12 +76,18 @@ days. Read it as the current answer, and see the git history if you need the old
   `angle_indirect` and `swangle_indirect` all boot, while `auto`, `off`, `guest` and
   `swiftshader_indirect` do not. `docs/local-emulator.md` has the evidence and the per-API renderer
   table.
-- **CI runs API 37, and it gates.** The matrix is 33/34/35/36/37. **Five** of the 68 instrumented
+- **CI runs API 37, and it gates.** The matrix is 33/34/35/36/37. **Five** of the 69 instrumented
   tests cannot be *run* on that image, for three unrelated reasons: three Media3 tests fail inside
   the emulator's own `c2.goldfish.h264.decoder`, one SAF test takes the framework down when it
   rotates the display, and its sibling — the SAF picker round trip — aborts `system_server` from
   the task-snapshot path whether it passes or not. All five carry `@FailsOnEmulatorApi37` and run
-  in a separate `continue-on-error` job; the gating leg runs the other 63.
+  in a separate `continue-on-error` job; the gating leg runs the other 64.
+
+  **These two numbers move with the suite and are derived, not remembered.** `grep -cE
+  '^\s*@Test' ` over `app/src/androidTest` is the first; the second is that minus the marker
+  count `.github/scripts/e2e-report-shape.sh` greps. Cross-check against any run's shape rather
+  than trusting the sentence: a leg below 37 reports the first as `expected`, and the API 37
+  gating leg reports the second.
 
   **That third reason is why "cannot pass" became "cannot be run" on 2026-09-05.** Four gating
   runs were read logcat-first — 34006456986, 34001744574, 34001377499 and the green 34002313300 —
diff --git a/app/src/androidTest/java/org/libremediaconverter/join/ConcatEngineTest.kt b/app/src/androidTest/java/org/libremediaconverter/join/ConcatEngineTest.kt
index d059f4e..ecadf1c 100644
--- a/app/src/androidTest/java/org/libremediaconverter/join/ConcatEngineTest.kt
+++ b/app/src/androidTest/java/org/libremediaconverter/join/ConcatEngineTest.kt
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import org.junit.runner.RunWith
 import org.libremediaconverter.convert.MediaProbe
 import org.libremediaconverter.convert.StagingNames
 import org.libremediaconverter.ffmpeg.ConcatEngine
+import org.libremediaconverter.ffmpeg.FFmpegEngine
 import org.libremediaconverter.model.ConcatStrategy
 import org.libremediaconverter.work.ConcatWorker
 import java.io.File
@@ -236,6 +237,55 @@ class ConcatEngineTest {
         )
     }
 
+    /**
+     * A failed join tells the user the return code and what FFmpeg said.
+     *
+     * **This is the device half of #203/#217**, whose PR closed by noting the join legs had not
+     * been run. Running them would not have answered it: nothing on either source set drove a real
+     * join *failure*, so the unified message was asserted only against values a JVM test hands to
+     * `sessionOutcome` directly.
+     *
+     * What is device-only here is that the three reads behind that message work against a real
+     * native session at all — `getReturnCode`, `getFailStackTrace` and `getAllLogsAsString`. If
+     * the log tail came back null or empty on a device, the user would get `Joining failed (1): `
+     * with nothing after the colon and every JVM test would still pass.
+     *
+     * **What this deliberately does not pin is the preference between the two detail sources.** On
+     * an ordinary non-zero return code FFmpegKit reports no fail stack trace, so the stack-trace-
+     * first rule and the log-tail-first rule produce the same text and no assertion here can tell
+     * them apart. That ordering is [SessionOutcomeTest][org.libremediaconverter.ffmpeg.SessionOutcomeTest]'s
+     * job, where both sources can be non-blank at once. Asserting it here would be a test whose
+     * KDoc claims more than it checks — the `probeForConcat` mistake wave 3 caught.
+     *
+     * The failure is forced with an input that does not exist, which the concat demuxer rejects
+     * the same way on every FFmpeg build, rather than with malformed media whose handling varies.
+     */
+    @Test
+    fun aFailedJoinReportsTheReturnCodeAndWhatFFmpegSaid(): Unit = runBlocking {
+        val missing = File(context.cacheDir, "no_such_clip.mp4").also { it.delete() }
+        val out = output("joined_failure.mp4")
+
+        val failure = runCatching {
+            engine.join(listOf(Uri.fromFile(clipA), Uri.fromFile(missing)), out)
+        }.exceptionOrNull()
+
+        assertTrue(
+            "a join over a missing input must fail, got $failure",
+            failure is FFmpegEngine.FFmpegException,
+        )
+        val message = failure?.message.orEmpty()
+        assertTrue(
+            "the message must name the operation and carry the return code, was: '$message'",
+            message.startsWith("Joining failed ("),
+        )
+        // The half a JVM test cannot reach: a real session actually produced detail to show.
+        val detail = message.substringAfter("): ", "")
+        assertTrue(
+            "the message stopped at the return code and told the user nothing, was: '$message'",
+            detail.isNotBlank(),
+        )
+    }
+
     @Test
     fun theListFileIsCleanedUpAfterJoining(): Unit = runBlocking {
         val out = output("joined_cleanup.mp4")