A relay connection can win the phase-1 race (plex.tv edge answers fast),
gets saved as the preferred endpoint, and the cached URL then wins the
deterministic head-start probe at every bind — pinning future sessions to
relay's 2 Mbps cap even after direct connectivity returns, surfacing as
HTTP 500s on Original quality. A session that lands on relay legitimately
(direct down at connect time) stays there all evening: re-optimization
only fired on connectivity events.
Relay is now a fallback tier in the race: all probes still start at once,
but a relay success is held until every direct candidate has failed, and a
cached relay URL gets no head start. A single persist gate refuses relay
at all four endpoint-save sites, classified against both the live server
and the connect-time capture so rotated relay URIs cannot slip through.
While the active endpoint is relay, a bounded-backoff re-probe (30s/60s/
120s) re-races the candidates so a returning direct endpoint promotes
away without a restart.
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