Release MeshChat for Windows v0.2.0-alpha · hardcoreerik/OrcMesh

What's new in v0.2.0

MeshChat now automatically reconnects when the radio link drops, and remembers your last-used connection so you don't have to retype it every launch.

Auto-reconnect

When a connected radio goes away (power cycle, USB unplug, network hiccup), MeshChat detects the loss and retries in the background using exponential backoff: 2 s → 5 s → 15 s → 30 s → 60 s, then every 60 s until it succeeds or you press Disconnect
The status bar shows Reconnecting… (attempt N) while retrying — no modal dialogs
Auto-retry only fires after a radio was successfully connected at least once this session, so a mistyped host or unpaired BLE device doesn't trigger a retry loop
Pressing Disconnect at any point cancels the retry immediately

Saved connection profiles

Your last-used transport, host/port, BLE address, or COM port is persisted to the local database and pre-filled in the connection bar on the next launch
No separate settings screen needed — it just works from the normal connect flow

Under the hood

New ConnectionSupervisor class wires the backoff timer, profile persistence, and controller signal handling together cleanly
The RECONNECTING connection state (defined since v0.1.0 but never emitted) is now active — the status indicator and connection bar reflect it correctly
app_settings SQLite table (present since v0.1.0, never used) is now the persistent store for all key/value settings

Write-queue durability (#16)

Each database write is now isolated in its own SAVEPOINT — a bad row can't roll back the rest of a batch
Transient SQLite lock errors are retried with bounded backoff; truly unrecoverable failures are tracked and reported, not silently dropped
Fixed an outermost-transaction bug where batch efficiency was being destroyed by incorrect SAVEPOINT/BEGIN ordering

Schema migrations (#17)

Database schema is now versioned with PRAGMA user_version
Upgrades from any previous schema version run automatically at startup with a pre-migration backup and post-migration integrity check
Safe to update without losing existing data

DB maintenance tools (#18)

check_integrity() — runs SQLite's integrity check on the live database
backup() — flushes all pending writes, checkpoints the WAL, and copies the DB to a timestamped file
vacuum_async() — reclaims disk space after pruning, queued through the writer thread

Chat history & zero-value fixes (#15)

Chat history now loads the 200 most-recent messages on startup (was loading all, then rendering all; large histories caused a slow start)
Fixed node_num == 0 being treated as falsy in several places — Meshtastic radio 0 is a valid node

Bluetooth on Heltec V4: Windows requires the device to be paired in Settings → Bluetooth before MeshChat can connect. Try PIN 123456 if prompted. See #19 for details and workarounds.

Close the previous version and run the new one — the database upgrades automatically on first launch.