Error recovery in caucuses

If a caucus member crashes, eventually the caucus framework implementation detects the crash and issues a leave message to the caucus on behalf of the crashed member.

The Caucus framework does not visibly distinguish between a member crashing and a member leaving. Clients can provide additional protocol that distinguishes this case. One way to do this is to have a member send an agreed upon message before leaving. If the caucus receives a leave message that is not preceded by the agreed-upon message, the other caucus members can then assume that the leaving member crashed.

In the time that transpires between the caucus member crashing and the implementation detecting this condition, the caucus might issue messages that the crashed member does not receive.

If the caucus itself crashes, perhaps due to a network failure, all pending and subsequent calls to TCaucusSendMessage and TCaucusReceiveMessage objects fail with kNotInCaucus exceptions. Once a caucus member returns a kNotInCaucus exception, the caucus member is no longer valid and you should delete it.


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