Let no failure eat a dictation, and none strand the state machine

The recorded WAV was deleted in a finally that did not care why the run
ended, so a whisper server being down destroyed the only copy of the
user's speech; a failed run now keeps its audio in the recordings
directory and names the path in the error. The history was written only
after the paste, and a failed key press restored the previous clipboard
over the fresh transcript: text not pasted, not on the clipboard, not in
the history, audio gone, all from one refused key. The history now comes
first, a failed press is a warning the row is amended to carry, and the
clipboard keeps the text the user has to paste by hand. Kept recordings
no longer overwrite each other inside one second, the keep_audio move
failing no longer falls through to the delete, and the history row
records whether cleanup actually ran rather than what the dictation gate
implies about an ask.

In the application: a recorder that failed to start emitted its error
synchronously and start() then wrote RECORDING over the handler's IDLE,
one more key press away from a BUSY nothing would ever end; start now
checks the recorder is running, like start_meeting always has. The new
died signal ends the run properly and transcribes what was captured. A
--paste override armed by a request that no-opped stopped haunting some
later unrelated run, and it dies with a cancelled or failed one. The
toggle, ask and pause debounce timers are per action, so a pause right
after a toggle is a pause and not a duplicate. Waiters outstanding at
quit or restart are settled instead of being read back as "the instance
is too old". The listing warm-up and the one-per-press backend lookup
move off the key press.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <[email protected]>

dikte/worker.py

@@ -107,11 +107,16 @@ class Pipeline(QObject):
 
             text = raw
             warning = ""
+            # Remembered rather than re-derived at the history write below: the
+            # ask path runs cleanup under a different setting, and the record
+            # should say what happened, not what one of the two gates implies.
+            cleaned = False
             # Claude reads through “eee” and “hani” without help, so a dictation
             # on its way there is normally sent as it was heard, one API call and
             # a second or two lighter.
             if (conf["assistant_cleanup"] if ask else conf["cleanup_enabled"]):
                 self.stage.emit(t("Cleaning up…"))
+                cleaned = True
                 try:
                     text = cleanup.run(raw, conf, conf.cleanup_prompt())
                 except api.ApiError as exc:
@@ -137,62 +142,111 @@ class Pipeline(QObject):
             if paste_override is not None:
                 wants_paste = paste_override
 
-            with _paste_lock:
-                previous = (paste.read_clipboard()
-                            if conf["restore_clipboard"] and wants_paste else None)
-                try:
-                    paste.copy(text)
-                    if wants_paste:
-                        self.stage.emit(t("Pasting…"))
-                        paste.press(conf["paste_shortcut"])
-                finally:
-                    if previous is not None:
-                        # Let the focused application consume the temporary
-                        # transcription before putting every old clipboard type
-                        # back.  This also runs when key injection fails.
-                        time.sleep(0.35)
-                        paste.copy_bytes(previous)
-
-            cfg.append_history({
+            # Into the history before the paste is attempted: the record says
+            # what was dictated, not whether a key press landed, and a paste
+            # that fails must not take the transcript down with it.
+            record = {
                 "ts": time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"),
                 "duration": round(duration, 1),
                 "elapsed": round(time.monotonic() - started, 1),
                 "model": target.model,
-                "cleanup_model": cleanup.model(conf) if conf["cleanup_enabled"] else "",
+                "cleanup_model": cleanup.model(conf) if cleaned else "",
                 "cleanup_error": warning,
                 "mode": "ask" if ask else "",
                 "question": question,
                 "assistant_model": conf["assistant_model"] if ask else "",
                 "raw": raw,
                 "text": text,
-            })
+            }
+            cfg.append_history(record)
             try:
                 cfg.trim_history(conf["history_limit"])
             except OSError as exc:
                 print(f"dikte: could not trim the history: {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
+
+            with _paste_lock:
+                previous = (paste.read_clipboard()
+                            if conf["restore_clipboard"] and wants_paste else None)
+                paste.copy(text)
+                if wants_paste:
+                    self.stage.emit(t("Pasting…"))
+                    try:
+                        paste.press(conf["paste_shortcut"])
+                    except paste.PasteError as exc:
+                        # The transcript is on the clipboard and in the history;
+                        # a key press that would not land is a warning, not a
+                        # failure, and the old clipboard is NOT put back over
+                        # the text the user now has to paste by hand.
+                        previous = None
+                        warning = "\n".join(x for x in (
+                            warning,
+                            t("Copied, but pasting failed: {error}", error=exc),
+                        ) if x)
+                        # The row above was written before the paste, so it
+                        # has to be told what the paste then did.
+                        record = cfg.amend_history(
+                            record, cleanup_error=warning) or record
+                if previous is not None:
+                    # Let the focused application consume the temporary
+                    # transcription before putting every old clipboard type
+                    # back.
+                    time.sleep(0.35)
+                    paste.copy_bytes(previous)
+
             self.finished.emit(raw, text, warning)
 
         except assistant.Cancelled:
             self.cancelled.emit()
         except (api.ApiError, paste.PasteError, assistant.AssistantError) as exc:
             print(f"dikte: {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
-            self.failed.emit(str(exc))
+            self.failed.emit(self._keeping(wav_path, str(exc)))
         except Exception as exc:  # never fail silently
             traceback.print_exc()
-            self.failed.emit(t("Unexpected error: {error}", error=exc))
+            self.failed.emit(self._keeping(wav_path, t("Unexpected error: {error}",
+                                                       error=exc)))
         finally:
             self._discard(wav_path)
 
+    def _keeping(self, wav_path, message):
+        """Put the failed run's audio somewhere a retry can find it.
+
+        A dictation that died on the way to the model is speech the user cannot
+        say again from memory; deleting it because a server was down turns one
+        failure into two. Kept regardless of the keep_audio setting, which is
+        about the runs that succeeded.
+        """
+        kept = self._keep(wav_path)
+        if not kept:
+            return message
+        return message + "\n" + t("The recording was kept: {path}", path=kept)
+
+    def _keep(self, wav_path):
+        """Move the WAV into the recordings directory; its new path, or ''."""
+        try:
+            cfg.RECORDINGS_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+            base = time.strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")
+            # Two runs can finish inside the same second; the first one kept
+            # must not be overwritten by the second.
+            for suffix in ("",) + tuple(f"-{n}" for n in range(1, 100)):
+                target = cfg.RECORDINGS_DIR / f"{base}{suffix}.wav"
+                if not target.exists():
+                    shutil.move(wav_path, target)
+                    return str(target)
+            return ""
+        except OSError as exc:
+            print(f"dikte: could not keep the audio: {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
+            return ""
+
     def _discard(self, wav_path):
         if not os.path.exists(wav_path):
             return
         if self.conf["keep_audio"]:
-            try:
-                cfg.RECORDINGS_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
-                shutil.move(wav_path, cfg.RECORDINGS_DIR / (time.strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S") + ".wav"))
+            if self._keep(wav_path):
                 return
-            except OSError:
-                pass
+            # The move failing is no reason to delete what the user asked to
+            # keep: the temporary file stays where it is, named in the log.
+            print(f"dikte: the audio stays at {wav_path}", file=sys.stderr)
+            return
         try:
             os.unlink(wav_path)
         except OSError: