Merge branch 'main' into docs/readme-restart-claim

Close the ANR dialog that was hiding every window from UiAutomator

README.md

@@ -113,7 +113,14 @@ container × codec matrix — including combinations that cannot work, which it
 offers alternatives for rather than hiding.
 
 Conversions run as durable background work, so they survive leaving the app and are
-restored after a restart.
+restored when you reopen it.
+
+One case is not restored, and it is worth knowing about. If Android refuses to let a job
+restart in the background, it is retried on an exponential backoff for about eight and a
+half hours and then given up on — and a job that has been given up on does not come back
+when you reopen the app. Reopening the app is what grants permission to run, so a
+conversion that has stalled this way is best started again from the app rather than waited
+on.
 
 ## Building
 

app/src/androidTest/java/org/libremediaconverter/saf/SafPickerRoundTripTest.kt

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 package org.libremediaconverter.saf
 
+import android.app.UiAutomation
+import androidx.compose.ui.test.ComposeTimeoutException
 import androidx.compose.ui.test.assertTextEquals
 import androidx.compose.ui.test.junit4.v2.createAndroidComposeRule
 import androidx.compose.ui.test.onAllNodesWithTag
@@ -10,6 +12,7 @@ import androidx.test.ext.junit.runners.AndroidJUnit4
 import androidx.test.platform.app.InstrumentationRegistry
 import androidx.test.uiautomator.By
 import androidx.test.uiautomator.BySelector
+import androidx.test.uiautomator.Configurator
 import androidx.test.uiautomator.StaleObjectException
 import androidx.test.uiautomator.UiDevice
 import androidx.test.uiautomator.Until
@@ -52,12 +55,138 @@ import org.libremediaconverter.ui.TestTags
  * either ViewModel, and `StateRestorationTester` saves into an in-memory map rather than a
  * `Bundle`.
  *
+ * ### #93: what actually failed was reading the screen, not the picker
+ *
+ * Ninety minutes after this class landed it started failing on gating legs at API 33, 34, 35 and
+ * 37 — on diffs that were two KDoc comments, a MIME lookup table and a README paragraph (#93).
+ * Every failure named the fixture root, so it read as a root-discovery race, and the ticket was
+ * filed on that reading. It was not one, and it was not the `StaleObjectException` #80 had fixed
+ * an hour earlier either.
+ *
+ * **DocumentsUI was fine.** On the API 34 leg of run 32806342548 its own
+ * `ProvidersAccess: Matched roots` names
+ * `content://org.libremediaconverter.test.fixtures/root/lmc-r38-root` five times inside the sixty
+ * seconds the test spent failing, `ActivityTaskManager` logged the `PickActivity` as `Displayed`,
+ * and the provider process started on cue.
+ *
+ * **This process could not read any window at all.** Two counts settle it. Across that whole leg
+ * UiAutomator logged `Retrieving node with selector` 1095 times and `Node not found with selector`
+ * 1095 times — not one selector ever matched, from the first query of the run. The green leg of
+ * the same job asked 7 times and found 5. `UiDevice.getWindowRoots` builds its search set from
+ * `UiAutomation.getWindows()` and, on API 21 and up, from nothing else; an empty list there makes
+ * every selector unfindable and says nothing whatever about SAF. The corroborating detail is that
+ * `By.desc("Show roots")` — the toolbar button, present on that screen whether the roots list is
+ * stale or not — was also not found, 28 s after the picker was displayed.
+ *
+ * **A fresh picker is not the repair, and this was measured rather than assumed.** The same leg
+ * opened a *second* `PickActivity` for the second test, in the same DocumentsUI process
+ * (pid 3299), and read exactly as little from it. So whatever was broken outlived one window.
+ * [requireAReadableScreen] is the part aimed at that: it asks whether this process can see the
+ * app's own window *before* the picker is opened, and [rebuildUiAutomation] tears the connection
+ * down and builds another if it cannot.
+ *
+ * **The check has since caught the real thing, in CI, and the connection rebuild did not repair
+ * it.** Run 32811493607, API 35 and API 37 legs, both tests, 12 s each instead of 60:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * java.lang.AssertionError: UiAutomator cannot see this app's own window, so it could not have
+ *   seen the picker's either. This is not a SAF failure.
+ *     at SafPickerRoundTripTest.requireAReadableScreen
+ * ```
+ *
+ * That is the diagnosis this class could not previously give, and it moves the question off SAF
+ * for good.
+ *
+ * ### What the window list said, and why nothing here can fix it
+ *
+ * [describeWindows] was added to that failure so the next occurrence would close the question
+ * rather than reopen it. It did — on the API 34 leg of run 32812248131 and again, character for
+ * character, on the API 33 leg of run 32812892103:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * ... Waking the device, dismissing the keyguard and rebuilding the UiAutomation connection all
+ * failed to make it readable. What it could see: com.android.systemui[type=3], android[type=3]
+ * ```
+ *
+ * `type=3` is `AccessibilityWindowInfo.TYPE_SYSTEM`. The list is **not** empty — it holds the
+ * system windows and **not one `TYPE_APPLICATION` window**, on a device where the framework had
+ * already logged `Displayed org.libremediaconverter/.MainActivity`. So the application layer
+ * never reaches accessibility on those boots, and every selector in this class, the picker's and
+ * the app's alike, is unfindable for the whole instrumentation run.
+ *
+ * Three CI runs on this branch caught the fault, at API 33, 34, 35 and 37, and every one of them
+ * printed that same list. It is not one level's quirk.
+ *
+ * ### And that list is what identified the occluder
+ *
+ * `android[type=3]` is `system_server`, and what it was holding is in the same logcat, minutes
+ * before this class ever ran:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * ANR in com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher (com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher/.NexusLauncherActivity)
+ * Reason: Input dispatching timed out (Application does not have a focused window)
+ * Window{4ed8414 u0 Application Not Responding: com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher}
+ * ```
+ *
+ * **The launcher ANRs on a loaded runner emulator, and the dialog it leaves behind never goes
+ * away.** It is opaque and fullscreen, so `AccessibilityWindowManager` drops every application
+ * window beneath it — which is how the app can be `Displayed` and unreadable at once, the
+ * contradiction that made #93 look like a SAF bug for six PRs. It is present on both legs
+ * examined, at API 33 and 34, at the failure timestamp.
+ *
+ * So [dismissASystemErrorDialog] is tried first, and it is the remedy with a mechanism behind it.
+ * The other two are kept behind it and are **measured as not the cause**: [unlockTheDevice] (the
+ * keyguard theory, from `KeyguardViewMediator` reporting an unprovisioned device — dismissing it
+ * changed nothing) and [rebuildUiAutomation]. A second `PickActivity` is not a remedy for this
+ * either, and that was measured too: the first failing leg opened one and read as little from it.
+ *
+ * **What is honest about the dialog remedy: it has been shown to do no harm, not to work.** It
+ * was forced on with no dialog present and the suite stayed green, which is the way a blind
+ * `click()` could have broken a healthy run. Dismissing a real ANR dialog has not been observed,
+ * because the fault has never been reproduced locally — not on six warm runs, not on cold
+ * full-suite runs at API 34 and 35 on freshly created AVDs under `swangle_indirect` at two cores,
+ * not under host load. If it recurs, the message now names the dialog and the window list, so the
+ * next step is a measurement rather than another theory.
+ *
+ * ### The whole pick is retried, which is a separate and smaller claim
+ *
+ * [pickTheFixture] also backs out and asks for another picker when the walk comes up short. That
+ * is not the answer to the paragraph above; it is the answer to a picker whose *lists* were built
+ * before their data arrived, which is a real thing DocumentsUI does and which
+ * [tapPickerNode]'s re-find cannot reach either — it re-acquires a handle inside the one picker.
+ *
+ * One API 37 run failed a step deeper than the rest: the root appeared and
+ * `[TEXT='\Qlmc-r38-fixture.mp4\E']` did not. **That shape has not been reproduced or
+ * diagnosed.** It is covered here only because a fresh pick re-walks from Recent, and that is
+ * worth writing down rather than letting the retry read as a fix for something nobody measured.
+ *
  * ### The mutations, and what they printed
  *
  * Both were run, not asserted. Narrowing the wildcard array `ConverterScreen.kt` passes to
  * `pickInput.launch` — to `arrayOf("application/x-lmc-no-such-type")` — empties the picker of the
- * fixture root entirely, and [pickingAFileThroughTheSystemPickerFillsInTheFileCard] fails on the
- * assertion that names it.
+ * fixture root entirely, and both tests fail on the assertion that names it. **Re-run after the
+ * #93 retry landed**, because a retry that tolerated an absent root would have made this mutation
+ * vacuous, which is the one thing that must not happen here:
+ *
+ * ```
+ * java.lang.AssertionError: the system picker never showed BySelector [TEXT='\QLMC R38 fixtures\E'],
+ *   in 3 separate pickers (the last one left org.libremediaconverter in front)
+ *     at org.libremediaconverter.saf.SafPickerRoundTripTest.pickTheFixture(SafPickerRoundTripTest.kt:268)
+ * ```
+ *
+ * The root is absent from all three pickers, so all three report it, and the cost of saying so is
+ * bounded: 126 s and 127 s for the two tests, against the 1200 s wrapper timeout in
+ * `.github/scripts/e2e-run.sh`. The clause about what was left in front is not decoration either
+ * — it is what says the retry really did get back to the app between attempts rather than tapping
+ * behind a picker that never closed.
+ *
+ * **That mutation only shows the retry failing correctly.** Showing it *recovering* needs a
+ * failure that goes away, so one was injected: a field making the first
+ * [walkThePickerToTheFixture] of each test return a selector nothing matches. Both tests then
+ * passed, with `ActivityTaskManager` logging four `OPEN_DOCUMENT` starts for the two of them —
+ * two pickers each. That is the run which says the reopened pick completes: that
+ * `pickInput.launch` is not refused from the re-resumed Activity, and that the second test's
+ * reopen, which lands in the last-accessed stack rather than on Recent, still walks to the file.
  * Making the ViewModel composition-scoped leaves the picker test alone and fails
  * [thePickedInputSurvivesARealRotation], with `:app:testDebugUnitTest` still BUILD SUCCESSFUL —
  * which is the divergence this ticket was filed to establish, and which was doubted on it. It is
@@ -115,6 +244,10 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
     private val device: UiDevice =
         UiDevice.getInstance(InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation())
 
+    /** The app under test, whose own window is what [requireAReadableScreen] asks for. */
+    private val appPackage: String =
+        InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation().targetContext.packageName
+
     /** Set by the one test that rotates, read by [restoreOrientation]. See its KDoc. */
     private var rotated = false
 
@@ -208,25 +341,276 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
      * Everything between the first tap and the last belongs to `com.google.android.documentsui`,
      * which is why UiAutomator is here at all: Compose's matchers stop at this process's
      * composition and Espresso's at its view hierarchy, and the picker is neither.
+     *
+     * **What is retried here is the whole pick.** [tapPickerNode]'s re-find re-acquires a handle
+     * to a node inside the picker that is already open, so it cannot reach a list that was built
+     * before its data arrived. Backing out and tapping "Choose file" again gets a *second*
+     * `PickActivity`, which rebuilds every list in it — and is what a user does when a picker
+     * comes up wrong. It is **not** the answer to the unreadable-screen failure in the class
+     * KDoc; [requireAReadableScreen], one line above, is the part aimed at that.
+     *
+     * The first attempt keeps the full [PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS]; the later ones use
+     * [REOPENED_TIMEOUT_MS], because by then the picker's process, its provider and its root cache
+     * are all warm and the only thing being waited on is one screen. That is what keeps the cost
+     * of a genuinely absent root bounded — see the class KDoc.
      */
     private fun pickTheFixture() {
-        composeRule.onNodeWithTag(TestTags.Converter.CHOOSE_FILE).performClick()
-
-        // THIS is the line the MIME filter mutation fails on. DocumentsUI matches the requested
-        // types against Root.COLUMN_MIME_TYPES and drops the roots that cannot answer, so a filter
-        // the fixture root does not satisfy takes the root out of the picker altogether -- along
-        // with "Images", "Audio", "Videos" and "Documents", measured on API 34.
-        tapPickerNode(By.text(FixtureDocumentsProvider.ROOT_TITLE)) {
-            // Which screen the picker opens on is its own business: it lands on Recent, where the
-            // roots are a strip at the bottom, but a device with a populated Recent may need the
-            // drawer. Looking in the second place widens where the root is searched for; it does
-            // not weaken what has to be found, which is still this root.
-            device.findObject(By.desc(SHOW_ROOTS_DESCRIPTION))?.click()
+        var missing: BySelector? = null
+        repeat(PICK_ATTEMPTS) { attempt ->
+            requireAReadableScreen()
+            openThePicker()
+            missing = walkThePickerToTheFixture(
+                if (attempt == 0) PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS else REOPENED_TIMEOUT_MS,
+            )
+            if (missing == null) {
+                awaitNode(TestTags.Converter.FILE_CARD_NAME)
+                return
+            }
+            dismissThePicker()
         }
+        throw AssertionError(
+            "the system picker never showed $missing, in $PICK_ATTEMPTS separate pickers " +
+                "(the last one left ${device.currentPackageName} in front)",
+        )
+    }
 
-        tapPickerNode(By.text(FixtureDocumentsProvider.FIXTURE_DISPLAY_NAME))
+    /**
+     * Refuses to go near the picker until this process can read a window it already knows is there.
+     *
+     * **This is the check that would have answered #93 outright**, instead of leaving six PRs to
+     * infer a SAF fault from a picker that was never the problem. It is here because of what the
+     * failing logcat counts. Across the whole API 34 leg UiAutomator
+     * asked for a node 1095 times and logged `Node not found` 1095 times — it never read anything,
+     * from the first query of the run onwards. The green leg of the same job asked 7 times and
+     * found 5. So the window list `UiDevice` searches, `UiAutomation.getWindows()`, was empty for
+     * that entire instrumentation run; on API 21 and up that list is the *only* place
+     * `getWindowRoots` looks, so an empty one makes every selector unfindable and says nothing
+     * about the app, the picker or the fixture.
+     *
+     * The probe is deliberately the app's **own** window, asked while the app is in front and
+     * before anything is tapped. It is the one window that must be readable for any of the rest to
+     * mean anything, so a failure here is unambiguous — where "the picker never showed the root"
+     * was not, and is what sent #93 looking at package installation and root caches.
+     *
+     * The repair is [rebuildUiAutomation]. It has been forced on and measured — a rebuilt
+     * connection still reads windows, which is the way it could have been worse than nothing —
+     * but it has **never been run against the real fault**, because the fault has never been
+     * reproduced on demand. See the class KDoc. What is certain is that a fresh picker is *not*
+     * the repair: the failing leg opened a second `PickActivity` for the second test, in the
+     * same DocumentsUI process, and read exactly as little from it.
+     */
+    private fun requireAReadableScreen() {
+        val app = By.pkg(appPackage)
+        if (device.wait(Until.hasObject(app), READABLE_TIMEOUT_MS) == true) return
+        dismissASystemErrorDialog()
+        if (device.wait(Until.hasObject(app), READABLE_TIMEOUT_MS) == true) return
+        unlockTheDevice()
+        if (device.wait(Until.hasObject(app), READABLE_TIMEOUT_MS) == true) return
+        rebuildUiAutomation()
+        if (device.wait(Until.hasObject(app), READABLE_TIMEOUT_MS) != true) {
+            throw AssertionError(
+                "UiAutomator cannot see this app's own window, so it could not have seen the " +
+                    "picker's either. This is not a SAF failure. Closing a system error dialog, " +
+                    "waking the device, dismissing the keyguard and rebuilding the UiAutomation " +
+                    "connection all failed to make it readable. What it could see: " +
+                    describeWindows(),
+            )
+        }
+    }
 
-        awaitNode(TestTags.Converter.FILE_CARD_NAME)
+    /**
+     * Closes a system "isn't responding" dialog, if that is what is on top of the app.
+     *
+     * **This is the occluder #93 turned out to have**, and it took the window list in the failure
+     * message to find it. `AppNotRespondingDialog` belongs to `system_server`, so it is the
+     * `android[type=3]` in `com.android.systemui[type=3], android[type=3]` — and it is opaque and
+     * fullscreen, so `AccessibilityWindowManager` drops every application window beneath it. The
+     * app is `Displayed` and unreadable at the same time, which is exactly the contradiction this
+     * class spent #93 failing to explain. It is not even this app's dialog:
+     *
+     * ```
+     * ANR in com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher (com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher/.NexusLauncherActivity)
+     * Reason: Input dispatching timed out (Application does not have a focused window)
+     * Window{4ed8414 u0 Application Not Responding: com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher}
+     * ```
+     *
+     * The launcher ANRs on a loaded runner emulator minutes before this class runs, and the dialog
+     * it leaves behind never goes away on its own.
+     *
+     * Dismissed by resource id rather than by button text, because the text is localised and the
+     * ids are not, and by id rather than by "the first button in the system window", because that
+     * would click whatever system window happened to be there. `aerr_wait` first: it dismisses the
+     * dialog and leaves the offending app alone, which is the polite answer when the app is not
+     * ours. Back is not tried — `BaseErrorDialog` swallows key events.
+     */
+    private fun dismissASystemErrorDialog() {
+        for (id in ERROR_DIALOG_BUTTONS) {
+            val button = device.findObject(By.res(id)) ?: continue
+            button.click()
+            device.waitForIdle()
+            return
+        }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Wakes the display and asks the keyguard to go away.
+     *
+     * The cheapest explanation for "this process cannot see the app's own window" is that
+     * something is in front of it, and on a runner emulator that something is the lock screen:
+     * these images come up unprovisioned, and `KeyguardViewMediator` says so in as many words --
+     * `we need to show the keyguard since the device isn't provisioned yet`. An occluded window is
+     * not in the accessibility window list, which is the same symptom as a broken connection and
+     * has a far more ordinary cause.
+     *
+     * `wm dismiss-keyguard` rather than a swipe, because it is a request to the window manager
+     * rather than a gesture that has to land somewhere this process cannot see. It is only
+     * attempted on the failure path -- a device that was readable never reaches here -- so a run
+     * where the keyguard was never up pays nothing and is not altered.
+     */
+    private fun unlockTheDevice() {
+        device.wakeUp()
+        device.executeShellCommand("wm dismiss-keyguard")
+        device.waitForIdle()
+    }
+
+    /** The accessibility window list, for a failure message that says what was actually there. */
+    private fun describeWindows(): String {
+        val windows = InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation().uiAutomation.windows
+        if (windows.isEmpty()) return "no windows at all (UiAutomation.getWindows() is empty)"
+        return windows.joinToString(", ") { "${it.root?.packageName ?: "?"}[type=${it.type}]" }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Tears down this run's `UiAutomation` connection and establishes a new one.
+     *
+     * `Instrumentation.getUiAutomation` hands back the existing connection unless the flags differ
+     * from the ones it was created with, in which case it destroys it and builds another — so
+     * asking for different flags and then for the original ones back is how a test reaches the
+     * connection at all. `UiDevice` re-reads the flags from `Configurator` on every call rather
+     * than caching an instance, so the next selector goes through the new connection.
+     *
+     * `FLAG_DONT_SUPPRESS_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICES` is toggled rather than chosen: it is only being
+     * used as a value that differs from whatever is configured, and it is put back.
+     *
+     * **Forced on and measured, because the obvious way for this to be worse than nothing is
+     * silent.** `UiDevice` puts `FLAG_RETRIEVE_INTERACTIVE_WINDOWS` on the service info during its
+     * own initialisation, and `getWindows()` is empty without it — so a rebuilt connection that
+     * did not get the flag back would cause exactly the emptiness this is meant to cure, on the
+     * one path where it is the last hope. Run unconditionally on every attempt, on a cold API 34
+     * emulator, both tests passed, and logcat shows the connection really being replaced rather
+     * than handed back: `Init UiAutomation[id=2, flags=0]`, then `id=4, flags=1`, then
+     * `id=6, flags=0`, with `Registering UiTestAutomationService` between each.
+     */
+    private fun rebuildUiAutomation() {
+        val configurator = Configurator.getInstance()
+        val flags = configurator.uiAutomationFlags
+        val instrumentation = InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation()
+        configurator.uiAutomationFlags = flags xor UiAutomation.FLAG_DONT_SUPPRESS_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICES
+        instrumentation.getUiAutomation(configurator.uiAutomationFlags)
+        configurator.uiAutomationFlags = flags
+        instrumentation.getUiAutomation(flags)
+    }
+
+    /** Waits for the app to be showing its own screen again, then asks for a picker. */
+    private fun openThePicker() {
+        awaitNode(TestTags.Converter.CHOOSE_FILE)
+        composeRule.onNodeWithTag(TestTags.Converter.CHOOSE_FILE).performClick()
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Null once the fixture URI is with the app, or the selector whose list never carried it.
+     *
+     * Three things have to be there, in order, and the `when` names them in that order so that a
+     * failure says which one was missing rather than "the picker did not work".
+     *
+     * **The first branch is what tells an unreadable picker from an absent root.** In #93 neither
+     * the root *nor the toolbar's "Show roots" button* could be found for sixty seconds, and a
+     * stale roots list would have left the toolbar findable. Both arrived as one message. Asking
+     * for the picker's package on its own separates them: `never showed BySelector [PKG=...]`
+     * means the picker was not readable, and the root selector means the root was not offered.
+     *
+     * The second is the line the MIME filter mutation fails on: DocumentsUI matches the requested
+     * types against `Root.COLUMN_MIME_TYPES` and drops the roots that cannot answer, so a filter
+     * the fixture root does not satisfy takes the root out of the picker altogether — along with
+     * "Images", "Audio", "Videos" and "Documents", measured on API 34.
+     *
+     * **The third takes no recovery action of its own, and that is deliberate rather than an
+     * oversight.** [openTheRootsDrawer] exists because a root has a *second* place it can be
+     * shown; a document in a directory listing has no second place, so there is nothing an
+     * in-picker action could do. Its recovery is the outer loop: a fresh picker re-walks from
+     * Recent into the root, which rebuilds the directory listing as well as the roots strip.
+     */
+    private fun walkThePickerToTheFixture(timeoutMs: Long): BySelector? {
+        val picker = By.pkg(DOCUMENTS_UI_PACKAGE)
+        val root = By.text(FixtureDocumentsProvider.ROOT_TITLE)
+        val fixture = By.text(FixtureDocumentsProvider.FIXTURE_DISPLAY_NAME)
+        return when {
+            device.wait(Until.hasObject(picker), timeoutMs) != true -> picker
+            !tapPickerNode(root, timeoutMs, ifAbsent = ::openTheRootsDrawer) -> root
+            !tapPickerNode(fixture, timeoutMs) -> fixture
+            else -> null
+        }
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * The picker's own drawer, opened only when the root was not on the screen it landed on.
+     *
+     * **In practice it never runs, and #80 was right to say so.** A hierarchy dump taken on a
+     * cold API 34 emulator while this test was passing has the fixture root on the landing
+     * screen — `text="LMC R38 fixtures"` at `android:id/title`, under a `BROWSE FILES IN OTHER
+     * APPS` header — with the drawer shut (`Show roots` present, `Hide roots` absent). So the
+     * roots strip is the normal path and the drawer is a widening, kept because a device with a
+     * populated Recent may push the strip off screen. Looking in a second place widens where the
+     * root is searched for; it does not weaken what has to be found, which is still this root.
+     */
+    private fun openTheRootsDrawer() {
+        device.findObject(By.desc(SHOW_ROOTS_DESCRIPTION))?.click()
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Backs out of the picker until the app has the window focus again.
+     *
+     * **The focus is asked of the Activity, not of UiAutomator, and that is not a stylistic
+     * choice.** The failure this retry exists for is a picker window UiAutomator cannot see, so a
+     * probe that went through the same accessibility window list would cheerfully report "the
+     * picker is gone" about the window that is still in front — and the reopened pick would then
+     * tap "Choose file" behind it. `Activity.hasWindowFocus` comes from the framework instead, and
+     * answers about the app rather than about the picker.
+     *
+     * It is also why this counts backs rather than pressing a fixed number of them. One back is
+     * enough from Recent and two are needed from inside the root, but a third from Recent would
+     * finish `MainActivity` and take the rest of the test with it.
+     */
+    private fun dismissThePicker() {
+        repeat(BACK_PRESSES) {
+            if (awaitAppFocus()) return
+            // Before the back press, not instead of it: an app-error dialog swallows key events,
+            // so a back aimed at the picker lands on the dialog and nothing moves. Measured --
+            // API 34 of run 32813885120 exhausted all four presses with `android` in front, which
+            // is that dialog, while the launcher it belonged to went on ANRing behind everything.
+            dismissASystemErrorDialog()
+            device.pressBack()
+        }
+        // The check after the last press, and not a spare one: `repeat` presses on its final
+        // iteration too, so without this a dismissal that worked on the last press would still be
+        // reported as a failure to close.
+        if (!awaitAppFocus()) {
+            throw AssertionError(
+                "the system picker would not close: after $BACK_PRESSES back presses the app " +
+                    "still does not have the window focus, and ${device.currentPackageName} is " +
+                    "in front. What could be seen: " + describeWindows(),
+            )
+        }
+    }
+
+    /** True once [MainActivity] has the window focus, false if it does not take it in time. */
+    private fun awaitAppFocus(): Boolean = try {
+        composeRule.waitUntil("the app has the window focus back", FOCUS_TIMEOUT_MS) {
+            composeRule.activity.hasWindowFocus()
+        }
+        true
+    } catch (_: ComposeTimeoutException) {
+        false
     }
 
     /**
@@ -244,21 +628,24 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
      *   at androidx.test.uiautomator.UiObject2.click(UiObject2.java:526)
      * ```
      *
-     * So what is retried is *acquiring a handle to a node that has to be there anyway* — every
-     * attempt still goes through [awaitPickerNode], which fails outright if the node is absent.
-     * The MIME mutation's bite is untouched: a root that is not in the picker is not found on any
-     * attempt, and the failure is still "the system picker never showed" rather than a stale one.
+     * So what is retried is *acquiring a handle to a node that has to be there anyway*. **A node
+     * that is simply not in this picker is reported rather than retried here** — it comes back as
+     * `false`, and [pickTheFixture] answers it with a whole new picker, which is the only thing
+     * that rebuilds a list or a window. The MIME mutation's bite is untouched either way: a root
+     * that is not in the picker is not found on any attempt or in any picker, and the failure is
+     * still "the system picker never showed" rather than a stale one.
      */
-    private fun tapPickerNode(selector: BySelector, ifAbsent: () -> Unit = {}) {
+    private fun tapPickerNode(selector: BySelector, timeoutMs: Long, ifAbsent: () -> Unit = {}): Boolean {
         var stale: StaleObjectException? = null
         repeat(TAP_ATTEMPTS) { attempt ->
             // ifAbsent only on the first attempt: it navigates, and re-navigating from a screen it
             // already reached would walk away from the node.
-            val node = awaitPickerNode(selector, if (attempt == 0) ifAbsent else ({}))
+            val node = awaitPickerNode(selector, timeoutMs, if (attempt == 0) ifAbsent else ({}))
+                ?: return false
             device.waitForIdle()
             try {
                 node.click()
-                return
+                return true
             } catch (e: StaleObjectException) {
                 stale = e
             }
@@ -267,19 +654,17 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
     }
 
     /**
-     * The picker node [selector] names, or a failure that says which one was missing.
+     * The picker node [selector] names, or null if this picker never showed it.
      *
      * [ifAbsent] runs once, after the first wait comes up empty, and then the wait is repeated. A
      * null return from `findObject` is deliberately not an error there: it is the "already on the
      * right screen" case.
      */
-    private fun awaitPickerNode(selector: BySelector, ifAbsent: () -> Unit = {}) =
-        device.wait(Until.findObject(selector), PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS)
+    private fun awaitPickerNode(selector: BySelector, timeoutMs: Long, ifAbsent: () -> Unit) =
+        device.wait(Until.findObject(selector), timeoutMs)
             ?: run {
                 ifAbsent()
-                requireNotNull(device.wait(Until.findObject(selector), PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS)) {
-                    "the system picker never showed $selector"
-                }
+                device.wait(Until.findObject(selector), timeoutMs)
             }
 
     /**
@@ -306,9 +691,69 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
         const val PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS = 30_000L
         const val APP_TIMEOUT_MS = 30_000L
 
+        /**
+         * The same wait once a picker has already come and gone, and shorter for a reason.
+         *
+         * What [PICKER_TIMEOUT_MS] is generous about is a cold start: DocumentsUI's process, the
+         * fixture's provider process, the root cache. By the second attempt all three are warm and
+         * the only thing left to wait on is one screen being laid out — measured at 2.7 to 3.4 s
+         * from the picker starting, on cold CI emulators at API 33, 34 and 35. Ten seconds is
+         * three times the worst of those, and it is what keeps a genuinely absent root — the MIME
+         * mutation — from costing three full-length attempts.
+         */
+        const val REOPENED_TIMEOUT_MS = 10_000L
+
+        /**
+         * How long the app is given to take the window focus back after a back press.
+         *
+         * Short, because this is asked once per back press and the first one is always asked while
+         * the picker is still in front, where it is *expected* to time out.
+         */
+        const val FOCUS_TIMEOUT_MS = 3_000L
+
+        /**
+         * How long this process is given to be able to read the screen at all.
+         *
+         * Short, and it is not waiting on anything being drawn: the app is already in front
+         * when this is asked. It is waiting only on the accessibility window list existing,
+         * which either does within a poll or two or -- as in #93 -- not at all.
+         */
+        const val READABLE_TIMEOUT_MS = 5_000L
+
         /** `Surface.ROTATION_0`, named rather than `0` so the comparison reads. */
         const val NATURAL_ROTATION = 0
 
+        /**
+         * How many pickers the fixture may fail to appear in before that is the finding.
+         *
+         * Three. Each one is a fresh `PickActivity` -- a fresh window, a fresh accessibility
+         * registration, a fresh roots query and a fresh directory load -- so this bounds the thing
+         * #93 measured, which is a picker that came up unreadable *once*. A root that is genuinely
+         * not offered is absent from all three, which is what keeps #64's MIME mutation red.
+         */
+        const val PICK_ATTEMPTS = 3
+
+        /**
+         * How many back presses may be spent getting out of a picker.
+         *
+         * One is enough from Recent, two from inside the fixture's own directory. Four leaves room
+         * for a picker that has been navigated deeper than this test ever navigates it, and stops
+         * well short of the count that would start finishing `MainActivity` instead.
+         */
+        const val BACK_PRESSES = 4
+
+        /**
+         * The package the system picker runs in.
+         *
+         * Named rather than resolved: `PackageManager.resolveActivity` is deprecated from API 33
+         * and its replacement is a lint argument this test does not need to have. A wrong value
+         * here cannot pass silently -- it is the first thing [walkThePickerToTheFixture] looks
+         * for, so the failure would read `never showed BySelector [PKG='...']` on every device.
+         * It is `com.google.android.documentsui` on every `google_apis` emulator image the CI
+         * matrix uses and on the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
+         */
+        const val DOCUMENTS_UI_PACKAGE = "com.google.android.documentsui"
+
         /**
          * How many times a picker node may be re-found before its staleness is the finding.
          *
@@ -319,6 +764,19 @@ class SafPickerRoundTripTest {
          */
         const val TAP_ATTEMPTS = 3
 
+        /**
+         * The buttons on the framework's app-error dialogs, by resource id.
+         *
+         * `aerr_wait` is first because it dismisses the dialog without killing the app under it,
+         * and the app under it is usually the launcher rather than anything this suite owns.
+         * `button1` catches the plainer `BaseErrorDialog` shapes that have no `aerr_` ids.
+         */
+        val ERROR_DIALOG_BUTTONS = listOf(
+            "android:id/aerr_wait",
+            "android:id/aerr_close",
+            "android:id/button1",
+        )
+
         /** DocumentsUI's drawer button. It carries no text, only this description. */
         const val SHOW_ROOTS_DESCRIPTION = "Show roots"