Mobile background-sync failure monitoring

Why this matters

Background failures are the worst kind of bug: invisible until the user notices the symptom. The sync didn’t run. The image prefetch failed. The token refresh silently expired. The user opens the app, sees stale data, and uninstalls. No crash, no error report — just a slow drip of churn.

These bugs cluster around two dimensions:

1. task_name: which job is failing (sync_messages, prefetch_images, refresh_token, upload_pending)
2. network_type: wifi-vs-cellular reveals timeout-tuning bugs and DNS-fallback misses

Grouping by both is the diagnostic. “All sync_messages on cellular” → cellular timeout is too aggressive. “All prefetch_images everywhere” → CDN regression.

Agentry runs the cross-tab in one prompt. The signal usually surfaces in 30 seconds.

What you get

• A failure-rate matrix: task_name × network_type
• Week-over-week delta so you can spot regressions vs chronic noise
• The top open cases tied to the worst-performing task

Walk through it

agentry_analytics_query {
  project_id: "default",
  query: "
    select
      properties.task_name as task,
      properties.network_type as net,
      countIf(event = 'background_task_started') as started,
      countIf(event = 'background_task_failed') as failed,
      countIf(event = 'background_task_failed') / countIf(event = 'background_task_started') as fail_rate
    from events
    where event in ('background_task_started', 'background_task_failed')
      and timestamp > now() - interval 7 day
    group by task, net
    having started > 100
    order by fail_rate desc
  "
}

{
  "rows": [
    { "task": "sync_messages",   "net": "cellular", "started":  84210, "failed": 24180, "fail_rate": 0.287 },
    { "task": "prefetch_images", "net": "wifi",     "started":  42100, "failed":  8420, "fail_rate": 0.200 },
    { "task": "prefetch_images", "net": "cellular", "started":  21430, "failed":  6210, "fail_rate": 0.290 },
    { "task": "refresh_token",   "net": "cellular", "started":  62800, "failed":  3820, "fail_rate": 0.061 },
    { "task": "sync_messages",   "net": "wifi",     "started": 168900, "failed":  4180, "fail_rate": 0.025 },
    { "task": "refresh_token",   "net": "wifi",     "started":  82400, "failed":   820, "fail_rate": 0.010 },
    { "task": "upload_pending",  "net": "wifi",     "started":  18400, "failed":   180, "fail_rate": 0.010 }
  ]
}

agentry_analytics_query {
  project_id: "default",
  query: "
    select
      properties.task_name as task,
      properties.network_type as net,
      countIf(event = 'background_task_failed' and timestamp > now() - interval 7 day) /
        nullIf(countIf(event = 'background_task_started' and timestamp > now() - interval 7 day), 0) as this_week,
      countIf(event = 'background_task_failed' and timestamp between now() - interval 14 day and now() - interval 7 day) /
        nullIf(countIf(event = 'background_task_started' and timestamp between now() - interval 14 day and now() - interval 7 day), 0) as last_week
    from events
    where event in ('background_task_started', 'background_task_failed')
      and timestamp > now() - interval 14 day
    group by task, net
    having this_week > 0.05 or last_week > 0.05
    order by this_week - last_week desc
  "
}

{
  "rows": [
    { "task": "sync_messages",   "net": "cellular", "this_week": 0.287, "last_week": 0.040 },
    { "task": "prefetch_images", "net": "wifi",     "this_week": 0.200, "last_week": 0.020 },
    { "task": "prefetch_images", "net": "cellular", "this_week": 0.290, "last_week": 0.022 },
    { "task": "refresh_token",   "net": "cellular", "this_week": 0.061, "last_week": 0.058 }
  ]
}

agentry_list_cases {
  project_id: "default",
  status: "open",
  matching: "prefetch|image|sync_message|timeout",
  window_hours: 168
}

{
  "cases": [
    {
      "case_id": "c_bg_1",
      "fingerprint": "f_img_a",
      "error_type": "HttpError",
      "message": "GET https://cdn.example.com/images/* returned 503",
      "events_count": 14630,
      "users_affected": 8200,
      "first_seen_at": "2026-05-13T11:00:00Z"
    },
    {
      "case_id": "c_bg_2",
      "fingerprint": "f_sync_a",
      "error_type": "SocketTimeoutException",
      "message": "Failed to connect to sync.api.example.com:443 after 5000ms",
      "events_count": 24180,
      "users_affected": 11420,
      "first_seen_at": "2026-05-13T15:30:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

The output

Background task failures (7d) — cross-tab task × network

                       WIFI fail %   CELLULAR fail %   WoW Δ (cellular)
sync_messages              2.5%        28.7% ★★★         +24.7 pp
prefetch_images           20.0% ★      29.0% ★★          +27.0 pp
refresh_token              1.0%         6.1%              +0.3 pp
upload_pending             1.0%         (no data)         —

Two regressions detected (both started May 13, deploy 4.2.0):

  1. prefetch_images: 2% → 20-29% (BOTH networks)
     Root: CDN 503s on https://cdn.example.com/images/*
     Case: c_bg_1 (14,630 events, 8,200 users)

  2. sync_messages: cellular 4% → 28.7% (wifi unaffected)
     Root: SocketTimeoutException at 5000ms — too aggressive for cellular
     Case: c_bg_2 (24,180 events, 11,420 users)

Recommended actions:
  - CDN config audit (rate limit / auth rule pushed recently?)
  - Bump cellular timeout to 30s OR add exponential retry
  - Ship 4.2.1 with both fixes

Setting it up

Two events per background task: started and failed. The network_type property is the diagnostic axis.

// Android WorkManager wrapper
class TrackedWorker(context: Context, params: WorkerParameters) : CoroutineWorker(context, params) {
  override suspend fun doWork(): Result {
    postAnalytics("background_task_started", mapOf(
      "task_name"    to taskName,
      "network_type" to currentNetworkType(),
      "app_version"  to BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME
    ))
    return try {
      doActualWork()
      Result.success()
    } catch (err: Throwable) {
      // analytics: count the failure
      postAnalytics("background_task_failed", mapOf(
        "task_name"    to taskName,
        "network_type" to currentNetworkType(),
        "error_type"   to err.javaClass.simpleName,
        "app_version"  to BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME
      ))
      // logs: capture the stack
      postLog(mapOf(
        "message"      to err.message,
        "stack"        to err.stackTraceToString(),
        "error_type"   to err.javaClass.simpleName,
        "properties"   to mapOf("task_name" to taskName, "network_type" to currentNetworkType())
      ))
      Result.retry()
    }
  }
}

Where postLog is your /v1/logs/ helper:

async function postLog(payload: Record<string, unknown>) {
  await fetch(`https://api.agentry.sh/v1/logs/${PROJECT_ID}/`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Authorization": `Bearer ${DSN}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      "User-Agent": "myapp-android/4.2.0",  // REQUIRED — Cloudflare 403s default UAs
    },
    body: JSON.stringify(payload),
  });
}

Variations

• “Same cross-tab but per app_version — is the regression isolated to 4.2.0?”
• “Median retry attempts before success per task — long tails indicate flaky infrastructure.”
• “Per-region cellular failure rate — sometimes a single carrier’s gateway is the issue.”
• “Set up a Routine that alerts #mobile-oncall when any task × network fail-rate exceeds 15% over 1h.”