Android Replay: BufferCaptureStrategy.stop() can persist replay state after deleting replay cache dir

Inizia con BufferCaptureStrategy.kt e ReplayCache.kt, seguendo BufferCaptureStrategy.stop() attraverso il setter di currentSegment e persistSegmentValues(). Riproduci il percorso di teardown della riproduzione con buffering, soprattutto dopo aver eliminato la directory della cache di riproduzione, e verifica che l’arresto della riproduzione non registri più l’errore No such file or directory.

Problem Statement

Android Session Replay can throw an internal error during replay teardown:

Failed to execute task CaptureStrategy.runInBackground
java.io.IOException: No such file or directory
...
at io.sentry.android.replay.ReplayCache.persistSegmentValues
...
at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BufferCaptureStrategy.stop

This appears to happen when stopping a buffering replay.

Likely root cause

BufferCaptureStrategy.stop() currently deletes the replay cache directory and then updates replay state in the same task:

• delete replay cache dir
• set currentSegment = -1

The currentSegment setter persists state through ReplayCache.persistSegmentValues(...).

On the replay worker thread, that persistence runs inline, so it can try to recreate/write .ongoing_segment after the replay directory has already been deleted.

That leads to:

java.io.IOException: No such file or directory
at java.io.File.createNewFile
at io.sentry.android.replay.ReplayCache.persistSegmentValues

Why this matters

This is at least noisy internal error logging, but it may also contribute to brittle replay lifecycle behavior in manual/custom flows that use combinations of:

• flush()
• pause()
• stop()
• startBuffering()

In our investigation, this showed up while testing a custom User Feedback + Replay workaround, where replay behavior was already timing-sensitive.

Relevant code path

Conceptually, the flow is:

• BufferCaptureStrategy.stop()
• FileUtils.deleteRecursively(replayCacheDir)
• currentSegment = -1
• persistSegmentValues(...)
• ongoingSegmentFile?.createNewFile()
• parent folder no longer exists

Expected behavior

Stopping replay should not try to persist replay state into a directory that has already been deleted.

Actual behavior

Replay teardown logs No such file or directory from ReplayCache.persistSegmentValues.

Suggested fix direction

Any of these would likely resolve it:

• clear/persist mutable state before deleting the replay directory
• mark the cache closed before state mutation can persist
• guard persistSegmentValues against a missing/deleted parent directory during teardown
• avoid persisting teardown sentinel values like currentSegment = -1 once shutdown has begun

Customer-visible context

This was observed during a real customer reproduction involving Android Session Replay plus custom in-app User Feedback, where the workaround flow exercised replay stop/restart behavior repeatedly.

Logs

Failed to execute task CaptureStrategy.runInBackground
java.io.IOException: No such file or directory
    at java.io.UnixFileSystem.createFileExclusively0(Native Method)
    at java.io.UnixFileSystem.createFileExclusively(UnixFileSystem.java:373)
    at java.io.File.createNewFile(File.java:1022)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.ReplayCache.persistSegmentValues$sentry_android_replay_release(ReplayCache.kt:290)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BaseCaptureStrategy$special$$inlined$persistableAtomic$default$2$2.invoke(BaseCaptureStrategy.kt:240)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BaseCaptureStrategy$special$$inlined$persistableAtomic$default$2.runInBackground(BaseCaptureStrategy.kt:227)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BaseCaptureStrategy$special$$inlined$persistableAtomic$default$2.setValue(BaseCaptureStrategy.kt:239)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BaseCaptureStrategy.setCurrentSegment(BaseCaptureStrategy.kt:88)
    at io.sentry.android.replay.capture.BufferCaptureStrategy.stop$lambda$0(BufferCaptureStrategy.kt:84)