Behavior Details

Retry Logic

When a stream fails, it’s automatically retried with exponential backoff:

Attempt	Delay
1-4	1s
5-7	2s
8-9	5s
10	10s
11	15s
12	20s
13+	30s

Random jitter (0-2s) is added to prevent thundering herd when multiple streams fail simultaneously.

• Default mode: retries indefinitely (unless --max-retries is set)
• Continuous mode (-C): retries on ALL exits (including clean exits like code 0 or 255). Clean exits reset the retry counter for minimal backoff. Only stop or remove stops a continuous stream.
• Pending retries can be cancelled within ~1 second by stop or remove.

Persistence

Stream configurations are stored in ~/.unleash-stream/startup. On service restart:

• Continuous streams (-C): automatically start streaming immediately
• Non-continuous streams: loaded as stopped — visible in list, start manually with start DEVICE or start --all
• Snapshots: automatically restart their capture loop

File Sources

When the source is a local file (e.g., .mp4, .mkv, .avi):

• -re flag is added for real-time pacing (prevents faster-than-realtime streaming)
• In continuous mode (-C), -stream_loop -1 is added for infinite looping
• Files are identified by path (starts with /, ./, ~, or a drive letter) or common video extensions

Log Management

• Each stream run creates a log file at /tmp/unleash-{name}-{timestamp}.log
• Up to 10 log files are retained per stream (oldest are deleted automatically)
• View with unleash-stream-cli logs or directly read the files