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Linux: device claim owner identity uses ps -o lstart, which shifts when the clock is stepped (WSL2), so a session gets DEVICE_IN_USE on its own claim #4437
Description
Version: agent-device 0.21.36 (also on main: packages/host-kit/src/internal/host-process.ts, readProcessStartTime and the pid=,state=,lstart= batch probe).
Host: WSL2 (Ubuntu 24.04, kernel 6.18.58.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2), daemon started by a Simlock worker.
What happens
install on a device the session just opened fails:
Error (DEVICE_IN_USE): android device emulator-5588 is owned by session "<same session>" in workspace "/home/<user>".
The diagnostics log shows phase: device_claim_conflict, classification: owner-process-reused, and the owner session is the caller's own.
Why
The claim stores ownerStartTime from ps -p <pid> -o lstart=. lstart is derived from boot time plus the process start in ticks, and Linux recomputes boot time when the wall clock is stepped. WSL2 steps the clock regularly to follow the Windows host, so the same live process reports a different lstart minutes later. Measured on one daemon process:
| When | lstart for the same PID |
|---|---|
| claim written | Mon Nov 9 23:54:54 2026 |
first install |
Mon Nov 9 23:54:57 2026 |
| a few minutes later | Mon Nov 9 23:54:58 2026 |
The exact string comparison then classifies the live owner as a reused PID and refuses the command.
Suggested fix
On Linux, read the start time from /proc/<pid>/stat field 22 (starttime, clock ticks since boot), optionally paired with /proc/sys/kernel/random/boot_id to survive reboots. That value does not move when the clock is stepped. Keep ps -o lstart for macOS. A tolerance window on lstart would also work, but it weakens the PID-reuse check.
Workaround we verified
Patching the three lstart= reads in dist/src/sdk-io.js to return linux:<boot_id>:<starttime> from /proc and restarting the daemon makes install succeed on a fresh lease, and the claim records ownerStartTime: "linux:<boot_id>:5371442".
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