pytest: mark renepay's self-pay test flaky
What the developer wrote
Authored by Rusty Russell
pytest: mark renepay's self-pay test flaky
Not sure this is worth getting to the bottom of, if we're going for xpay?
```
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4375717Z lightningd-1 2026-01-20T05:22:41.062Z DEBUG plugin-cln-renepay: sendpay_failure notification: {"sendpay_failure":{"code":202,"message":"Malformed error reply","data":{"created_index":2,"id":2,"payment_hash":"8447592dc3786c3181746bd7bf17fe9e84d3de3dfff847f9f2b8c1a65c2d3ff6","groupid":1,"partid":1,"destination":"038194b5f32bdf0aa59812c86c4ef7ad2f294104fa027d1ace9b469bb6f88cf37b","amount_msat":10000,"amount_sent_msat":10000,"created_at":1768886560,"status":"pending","bolt11":"lnbcrt100n1p5k7yfqsp5g072rrl6jn7wu8nlxk279zpkacz34hr22n089j4elguccfxmg0gqpp5s3r4jtwr0pkrrqt5d0tm79l7n6zd8h3alluy070jhrq6vhpd8lmqdqgw3jhxapjxqyjw5qcqp99qxpqysgq6dd74sj0vpyjy9he8pep73tt8pljhv6mc74y28rr8995yjyahgh9kc2jqwqz62h6u6jpqz0u9x6gcahdw3pe2x8r5eyppp53mlpru8sp4p4nf6","onionreply":"c5a02ce5372635959d87818f723767efe3137bbc40568fb04e1f2eedee0a6149000e400f00000000000027100000006c00f20000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"}}}
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4386158Z lightningd-1 2026-01-20T05:22:41.067Z **BROKEN** plugin-cln-renepay: Unable to parse sendpay_failure: {"code":202,"message":"Malformed error reply","data":{"created_index":2,"id":2,"payment_hash":"8447592dc3786c3181746bd7bf17fe9e84d3de3dfff847f9f2b8c1a65c2d3ff6","groupid":1,"partid":1,"destination":"038194b5f32bdf0aa59812c86c4ef7ad2f294104fa027d1ace9b469bb6f88cf37b","amount_msat":10000,"amount_sent_msat":10000,"created_at":1768886560,"status":"pending","bolt11":"lnbcrt100n1p5k7yfqsp5g072rrl6jn7wu8nlxk279zpkacz34hr22n089j4elguccfxmg0gqpp5s3r4jtwr0pkrrqt5d0tm79l7n6zd8h3alluy070jhrq6vhpd8lmqdqgw3jhxapjxqyjw5qcqp99qxpqysgq6dd74sj0vpyjy9he8pep73tt8pljhv6mc74y28rr8995yjyahgh9kc2jqwqz62h6u6jpqz0u9x6gcahdw3pe2x8r5eyppp53mlpru8sp4p4nf6","onionreply":"c5a02ce5372635959d87818f723767efe3137bbc40568fb04e1f2eedee0a6149000e400f00000000000027100000006c00f20000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"}}
```
```
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4465729Z with pytest.raises(RpcError, match=r"Unknown invoice") as excinfo:
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4466111Z > l1.rpc.call("renepay", {"invstring": inv2})
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4466310Z
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4466402Z tests/test_renepay.py:423:
...
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4489732Z elif "error" in resp:
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4490005Z > raise RpcError(method, payload, resp['error'])
2026-01-20T05:25:55.4492135Z E pyln.client.lightning.RpcError: RPC call failed: method: renepay, payload: {'invstring': 'lnbcrt100n1p5k7yfqsp5g072rrl6jn7wu8nlxk279zpkacz34hr22n089j4elguccfxmg0gqpp5s3r4jtwr0pkrrqt5d0tm79l7n6zd8h3alluy070jhrq6vhpd8lmqdqgw3jhxapjxqyjw5qcqp99qxpqysgq6dd74sj0vpyjy9he8pep73tt8pljhv6mc74y28rr8995yjyahgh9kc2jqwqz62h6u6jpqz0u9x6gcahdw3pe2x8r5eyppp53mlpru8sp4p4nf6'}, error: {'code': -4, 'message': 'Plugin terminated before replying to RPC call.'}
```
Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
What changed, and why it matters
This commit only adds a test-flakiness marker to an existing automated test. It does not change any production code, and the commit message treats the underlying crash as a low-priority test reliability issue rather than a security problem.
No immediate security action required. If the underlying plugin crash is concerning, investigate renepay's handling of malformed `sendpay_failure` onion replies separately from this test-only commit.
Security signals we found
Plugin crash (cln-renepay) observed in test logs, but not patched
Malformed onion reply handling may be a latent robustness issue, though not demonstrated to be exploitable
Change is test-only; no runtime behavior is altered
Evidence from the diff
The diff adds @pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=2) to test_self_pay in tests/test_renepay.py. The commit message shows that the renepay plugin sometimes crashes when it receives a sendpay_failure notification containing a malformed onion reply, causing the plugin to terminate before replying to the RPC call. However, the patch does not fix the crash; it merely retries the test up to two times. No production code is modified.
Changed components
tests/test_renepay.pycln-renepay plugin (referenced in logs only, not modified)Inspect captured patch +1 / −0
diff --git a/tests/test_renepay.py b/tests/test_renepay.py
index 047d4a4d..65735426 100644
--- a/tests/test_renepay.py
+++ b/tests/test_renepay.py
@@ -407,6 +407,7 @@ def test_hardmpp(node_factory):
assert invoice["amount_received_msat"] >= Millisatoshi("1800000sat")
+@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=2)
def test_self_pay(node_factory):
l1, l2 = node_factory.line_graph(2, wait_for_announce=True)
Why this scored 11/100
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