RELIABILITY BRIEF · P2 · SESSION STATE / VISION
Hermes xAI Vision-History Session Bricking: Issue #69078
A sourced reliability brief on an open report that replayed native vision tool results can yield a non-retryable Invalid PNG error and leave an xAI gateway session unusable.
What the report says
The open issue says a gateway session containing native vision tool results began receiving a non-retryable xAI Invalid PNG image 400 on every API call. The report says the source images were valid and attributes the failure hypothesis to image-payload corruption during re-serialization of replayed history. Reported recovery required deletion of the session and its gateway routing row.
Status boundary: This page summarizes a public, open issue report. It is not an independent reproduction, security assessment, product-wide reliability estimate, or confirmation that the report remains unresolved.
Operational significance
For an affected session, this can make continued work impossible and may put prior visual context at risk during recovery. This brief does not independently verify payload corruption, permanence, affected versions, or whether the reported recovery path is appropriate in other deployments.
Evidence-bounded verification checklist
| Check | Question | Safe evidence practice |
|---|---|---|
| Session trigger | Does the failure begin only after a native vision result enters the history? | Use a non-sensitive test image and record the exact session and provider context. |
| Error stability | Do repeated calls return the same non-retryable error? | Keep raw error classification and timestamps without exposing private image content. |
| History isolation | Does a new session with equivalent new input behave differently? | Separate replayed-history behavior from general provider or account availability. |
| Artifact integrity | Can original image artifacts and serialized history be compared safely? | Preserve hashes or metadata where permitted instead of publishing contents. |
| Recovery boundary | What state is retained, lost, or unknown after an approved recovery action? | Back up relevant records and avoid destructive deletion until the scope is understood. |
Handling guidance
- Treat a repeating non-retryable image error as a session-integrity incident until its scope is known.
- Use safe sample media for reproduction and redact identifiers, prompts, and visual data in issue evidence.
- Do not label a session permanently corrupted unless the available evidence demonstrates that outcome.
- Follow the upstream issue for maintainer analysis, a supported recovery path, and release-status changes.
Source evidence
Hermes Agent GitHub issue #69078
Issue status, labels, discussion, and remediation guidance can change. Consult the upstream report directly before making deployment or product decisions.