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/remote toggle stops working in long-running sessions; off/on cycle does not recover #3358

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Description

@max-montes

Summary

/remote on appears to stop working partway through a long-running Copilot CLI session. Toggling /remote off then /remote on did not restore the connection — the GitHub mobile app continued to show the session as "off / not remote-enabled". The only working remediation was to abandon the session entirely and start a fresh one.

Environment

  • Copilot CLI version: 1.0.49-1
  • Platform: macOS (Darwin)
  • Model in session: claude-opus-4.7-1m-internal
  • Session length when issue surfaced: very long (multi-day session with overnight scheduled prompts via /schedule)

Steps to reproduce

  1. Start a Copilot CLI session and enable /remote on.
  2. Confirm the session shows as remote-enabled in the GitHub mobile app.
  3. Let the session run for an extended period (in our case: multi-day, with manage_schedule background heartbeats firing every 30 min overnight).
  4. Return to the GitHub mobile app and try to interact remotely.

Expected

The session continues to appear as remote-enabled and accepts remote input from the GitHub mobile/web app.

Actual

  • The GitHub mobile app shows the session as "off" / not remote-controllable, even though /remote inside the CLI reports it as on.
  • Toggling /remote off then /remote on from inside the CLI does not restore the link.
  • No error message is shown on either side.
  • Only workaround: end the session and start a new one, then /remote on from the fresh session.

Impact

The whole point of /remote is to check in on long-running, possibly overnight work from a phone. Losing the link silently during exactly the kind of long sessions it's designed for defeats the feature. Starting over also loses in-memory session state (scheduled prompts via manage_schedule are session-scoped and end with the session — this compounds the cost of having to start over).

Suggested investigation

  • Is there a server-side heartbeat / WS keepalive that's timing out for long-idle sessions?
  • Does /remote on re-register with the GitHub app side, or does it only flip a local flag?
  • Is there a way to surface the broken link in the CLI so users don't think it's still working?

Happy to share more context (anonymized session ID, approximate timing) if useful.

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    area:networkingProxy, SSL/TLS, certificates, corporate environments, and connectivity issuesarea:sessionsSession management, resume, history, session picker, and session state

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