[tor-bugs] #29245 [Core Tor/Tor]: Tor 0.4 eventually hits "Delaying directory fetches: No running bridges" after some period of inactivity with bridges

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#29245: Tor 0.4 eventually hits "Delaying directory fetches: No running bridges"
after some period of inactivity with bridges
-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------
 Reporter:  ArmalsLoveArmalsLife                 |          Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium                               |      Milestone:  Tor:
                                                 |  unspecified
Component:  Core Tor/Tor                         |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                               |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  040-regression, snowflake,           |  Actual Points:
  040-deferred-20190220                          |
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                       |        Sponsor:
                                                 |  Sponsor19
-------------------------------------------------+-------------------------
Changes (by dcf):

 * keywords:  040-regression, snowflake?, 040-deferred-20190220 =>
     040-regression, snowflake, 040-deferred-20190220
 * cc: dcf (added)


Comment:

 Adding the "snowflake" keyword because while this situation can arise with
 any kind of transport/bridge, it's more likely to happen with snowflake
 because snowflake is more likely to drop connections and make tor think
 its connection is unreliable.

 I don't think this is a regression; I've managed to get tor into a loop of
 `Delaying directory fetches: No running bridges` many times in the past
 while testing other pluggable transports. It's likely that the preceding
 log message was
 {{{
 [warn] Your Guard flakey ($2B280B23E1107BB62ABFC40DDCC8824814F80A72) is
 failing an extremely large amount of circuits. This could indicate a route
 manipulation attack, extreme network overload, or a bug.
 }}}

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/29245#comment:6>
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