v7.0.4 — playlist stall repair

Rollout: qualified owner worker repair queued behind v7.0.2 and v7.0.3. It is not yet confirmed live. The corresponding independent-host repair is the private v7.0.1 dev13 kit; these are separate release families.

• Fixes playlist validation for an explicitly requested built-in Approved Standard chart. Ordinary Ranked selection and unsupported speed/ruleset protections remain.
• Associates a pending queue item with its real server ID only after an authoritative event or snapshot passes validation, allowing normal skip and start progression.
• Spaces repeated inconclusive room-liveness checks by 2, 4, 8 and up to 15 seconds, avoiding repeated pre-start checks consuming the shared API budget. An unknown room still cannot authorize a start or mutation.
• Suppresses a late chat response cancelled during an explicitly requested shutdown without marking that worker as crashed. Errors during active operation retain their existing handling.

The owner repair changes only the room worker and preserves all saved settings, titles, ranges, OAuth, Discord, catalogs and ratings. Existing v7.0.2 and v7.0.3 queue records remain unchanged. After those prerequisites finish, each room updates through the normal empty/idle gate; occupied rooms are not forced closed.

The private dev13 operator kit upgrades the same stopped dev12 instance without reinstallation, sign-in or retuning. Follow its PLAYLIST_REPAIR_UPGRADE.md and included upgrade script. It includes the short help and full feedback command wording from v7.0.3. The complete prepared catalogs are unchanged.

Full prepared Standard and DT catalogs reproduce the Approved-chart case. Frozen source checks cover queue/audit/skip, invalid variants, probe pressure, start/readiness, languages and rolling compatibility. Installed donor qualification checks fresh and retained two-room native gameplay, preserved state and clean teardown using an invented provider. These checks do not establish actual remote gameplay acceptance.

The incident did not establish the cause of every uncertain exchange. General per-worker fault isolation remains separate work. Optional PP projection still needs a separately installed .NET 8 runtime; it is not bundled in this repair.

See room update timing and recovery and release history.