[Bug] Infinite "connecting" state on versions 0.1.40+

[alex-polus]

I’m running into a bug where the app gets stuck in an infinite “Connecting” state, as shown in the screenshot. My simulator works fine, and the updated feed appears for 1–2 seconds before switching back to this state and never recovering. This only happens on versions 0.1.40+, version 0.1.39 and earlier work without any issues.

@EvanBacon

[pavelbabenko]

Same issue. Reverting to 0.1.39 helped

[jeroenbaas]

Independent reproduction on the current latest stable release, serve-sim@0.1.44.

Environment:

• macOS 26.3 (25D125), Apple Silicon (Mac16,10)
• Xcode 26.5 / iOS Simulator 26.5
• Node v25.5.0
• Chromium client on another machine on the LAN

Observed:

1. The preview becomes live and renders frames.
2. After browser/HID interaction (in our case, focusing a token input), it returns to Connecting and does not recover.
3. The helper is still healthy: /stream.mjpeg continues returning HTTP 200 and transferred multiple megabytes over short samples (for example, about 7.6 MB in 3 seconds). This appears to be preview frame-reader/liveness state rather than the simulator or capture backend stopping.

Downgrading to 0.1.39 avoided this specific client regression, but was not a viable fallback with this toolchain: its older helper stopped emitting frames after the first browser/HID interaction.

As a diagnostic workaround, forcing the preview onto the browser-native MJPEG <img> path kept the feed live through input, which further points at the JavaScript frame-reader path introduced after 0.1.39.