Say why mesh chat failed instead of retrying a minute later

Every fetch ended in an empty catch, so a failed channel list was
indistinguishable from a slow one: nothing rendered, nothing was logged, and
the next attempt was a backoff tick away. Errors now land in the card's status
line and the console, a failure retries in two seconds, and opening the pane
before the list has arrived asks for it rather than waiting.

Plugin/unraid/include/node_chat.php

@@ -438,11 +438,47 @@ function _vvNcWho(id) {
   return full ? (_vvNc.hosts[id] || id) : id.toUpperCase();
 }
 
+// Whatever went wrong, said out loud in the card's own status line.
+//
+// Every fetch here used to end in `.catch(() => {})`. A failed channel list was therefore
+// indistinguishable from a slow one: nothing appeared, nothing was logged, and the next attempt
+// was a backoff tick away — up to ninety seconds — so a single failed request looked exactly like
+// "the chat takes a minute to load". Silence plus a long retry is how a fast failure becomes a
+// slow mystery.
+function _vvNcErr(where, e) {
+  _vvNcErrShown = true;
+  const st = document.getElementById('vv-nc-status');
+  const msg = (e && e.message) ? e.message : String(e || 'failed');
+  if (st) { st.textContent = where + ': ' + msg; st.style.color = '#a05a2c'; }
+  try { console.warn('[mesh chat] ' + where, e); } catch (_) {}
+}
+// Cleared on any success. Deliberately not conditional on "was it showing an error" — comparing a
+// computed style back to the hex that set it is a string match on the browser's rgb() rendering,
+// which is the kind of check that works until it silently does not.
+let _vvNcErrShown = false;
+function _vvNcOk() {
+  if (!_vvNcErrShown) return;
+  _vvNcErrShown = false;
+  const st = document.getElementById('vv-nc-status');
+  if (st) { st.textContent = ''; st.style.color = '#3a3a3a'; }
+}
+
+// A failed attempt retries in two seconds rather than waiting for the next backoff tick. Recovery
+// should track how long the failure lasted, not how long the poller happens to be sleeping.
+function _vvNcRetrySoon() {
+  if (_vvNcTimer) clearTimeout(_vvNcTimer);
+  _vvNcTimer = setTimeout(() => { vvNcChans(); _vvNcSchedule(); }, 2000);
+}
+
 function vvNcChans() {
   fetch('/plugins/varaverk/api/node_chat.php?_=' + Date.now())
-    .then(r => r.json())
+    .then(r => {
+      if (!r.ok) throw new Error('HTTP ' + r.status);
+      return r.json();
+    })
     .then(d => {
-      if (!d.ok) return;
+      if (!d.ok) { _vvNcErr('channels', d.error || 'endpoint returned ok:false'); return; }
+      _vvNcOk();
       _vvNc.me = d.me; _vvNc.chans = d.channels || []; _vvNc.hosts = d.hostnames || {};
       const sel = document.getElementById('vv-nc-ch');
       if (!sel) return;
@@ -457,17 +493,27 @@ function vvNcChans() {
       const b = document.getElementById('vv-nc-badge');
       if (b) { b.hidden = !tot || _vvNcMeshOn; b.textContent = '✉ ' + tot; }
     })
-    .catch(() => {});
+    .catch(e => { _vvNcErr('channels', e); _vvNcRetrySoon(); });
 }
 
 function vvNcSelect(ch) { _vvNc.ch = ch; vvNcLoad(); }
 
 function vvNcLoad() {
-  if (!_vvNc.ch) return;
+  // No channel yet means the list has not landed — ask for it rather than returning silently and
+  // leaving the transcript on "loading" until a backoff tick happens to fetch it. This is the path
+  // taken when the mesh pane is opened before the first channel list has arrived.
+  if (!_vvNc.ch) { vvNcChans(); return; }
   fetch('/plugins/varaverk/api/node_chat.php?channel=' + encodeURIComponent(_vvNc.ch) + '&_=' + Date.now())
-    .then(r => r.json())
-    .then(d => { if (d.ok) { _vvNc.msgs = d.messages || []; _vvNc.lastRead = d.last_read || 0; vvNcRender(); } })
-    .catch(() => {});
+    .then(r => {
+      if (!r.ok) throw new Error('HTTP ' + r.status);
+      return r.json();
+    })
+    .then(d => {
+      if (!d.ok) { _vvNcErr('messages', d.error || 'endpoint returned ok:false'); return; }
+      _vvNcOk();
+      _vvNc.msgs = d.messages || []; _vvNc.lastRead = d.last_read || 0; vvNcRender();
+    })
+    .catch(e => { _vvNcErr('messages', e); });
 }
 
 function vvNcRender() {
@@ -508,7 +554,7 @@ function vvNcRender() {
       method: 'POST', headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'},
       body: new URLSearchParams({ csrf_token: typeof csrf_token !== 'undefined' ? csrf_token : '',
                                   action: 'read', channel: _vvNc.ch })
-    }).catch(() => {});
+    }).catch(e => _vvNcErr('read', e));
   }
 }
 
@@ -610,7 +656,7 @@ function vvNcDel(id) {
     method: 'POST', headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'},
     body: new URLSearchParams({ csrf_token: typeof csrf_token !== 'undefined' ? csrf_token : '',
                                 action: 'delete', channel: _vvNc.ch, id })
-  }).then(() => vvNcLoad()).catch(() => {});
+  }).then(() => vvNcLoad()).catch(e => _vvNcErr('delete', e));
 }