When a connection breaks

A connection can go bad in exactly two ways — its token stopped working, or it can't be reached at all — and Deckgauge tells the two apart so you're not guessing which one you're looking at.

deckgauge · Board · Sources
ada-systems/checkout expired
FieldValue
Paste new token•••••••• [Save]

A source card expanded on an expired token, showing the inline reconnect box.

What the health badge means

StateWhat it means
ValidThe connection's own test call succeeded
ExpiredThe test call came back 401/403 — the token itself is bad
UnreachableAnything else failed (DNS, timeout, 5xx) — treated as transient, not a token problem

That distinction matters for scheduling too: an unreachable source is still attempted on the next sync (it might only be a blip), while an expired source is skipped on Sync Now so one bad token doesn't hold up every other source on the board.

How to reconnect

  1. Watch for the ⚠ Token expired button on the board's sync controls, or the health badge on a source card in the Sources tab.
  2. Clicking it jumps straight to the broken source via ?fix=<provider>:<instanceId> in the URL — the exact card opens automatically with its reconnect box already showing.
  3. Paste a new token and save. The new token is validated before it's stored — a bad paste never silently overwrites a working connection with a broken one.

The two banners

Two different problems get two different banners, so the fix on screen always matches the actual cause:

  • Reconnect banner ("This connection's token is expired or invalid…") — shown for GitHub, GitLab, and Azure DevOps whenever a probe or a live picker call comes back unauthorized. It carries the same token-creation walkthrough as the original connect form, so you're not hunting for the right scopes a second time.
  • Host-fix banner (Jira only) — shown when the failure looks like Atlassian's vanity/display domain rather than a bad token. Its Use this URL button repoints the connection at the canonical *.atlassian.net host and retests automatically — see Connecting Jira for why this happens.

Per-provider, what to actually do

ProviderIf expired
JiraCheck for the host-fix banner first — most Jira "expired" reports are really the vanity-domain trap. If the host is already correct, generate a new API token and paste it.
GitHubReissue the PAT with the same scopes, and re-authorize it for any SSO-protected org it needs to read.
GitLabReissue the access token with read_api/read_repository/read_user.
Azure DevOpsReissue the PAT with the Code, Work Items, and Project & Team read scopes.

If it looks wrong

SymptomCauseFix
Badge says Expired right after pasting a new tokenThe new token itself failed validation and wasn't savedRe-check the token was copied in full, with the right scopes
Badge flickers between Valid and UnreachableTransient network issue with the provider, not the tokenNo action needed — it clears on the next successful probe
Jira keeps 401ing after pasting a fresh tokenStill pointed at the vanity/display domainUse the host-fix banner, or manually switch the URL to *.atlassian.net

Related

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