fix: /v1/tracks/{id}/stems 500s hid contest stems — harden NULL handling (stems invisible since ~Jul 12 cutover)

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dylanjeffers]

TL;DR

/v1/tracks/{id}/stems fails the entire request when any selected column scans NULL into a non-pointer Go field, and every stem indexed by the Go ETL since the ~July 12 Python→Go cutover has NULL orig_filename. The result was a silent 500 that made the stems section / ContestStemsCard blank for post-cutover uploads — most visibly Andrew Lux's "Alone" remix contest (parent JBKl7R6, 43 stems uploaded 7/20, all correct on-chain). #973 fixed the orig_filename case on main (June 23), but this PR closes the remaining NULL-scan path (stem_of wiped → category/parent_track_id NULL) and adds regression coverage.

Root cause chain

1. The Go ETL never persists orig_filename — the entity-manager create handler doesn't extract it, so only legacy Python-indexed rows carry a value. Verified against the raw on-chain txs (core blocks 28480416–28480440): the metadata contains orig_filename and a correct stem_of, and replaying the exact tx through the vendored ETL persists stem_of fine.
2. The endpoint scanned NULLs into non-pointer string/int fields (pgx.RowToStructByName), so one ETL-shaped row 500s the whole response — every stem on the parent disappears, not just the affected one.
3. Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 (June 23) fixed the orig_filename scan via COALESCE(orig_filename, title, ''). Prod is running 915c37d today (pods restarted 2026-07-26 08:07 UTC), which includes it — but the incident behavior on 7/20–7/25 is consistent with the pods running a pre-Fix stems endpoint with null original filenames #973 build until that 7/26 restart. Worth confirming from deploy history (kubectl --context prod -n api rollout history / image tags).
4. Still broken until this PR: a stems join row can outlive tracks.stem_of. An explicit "stem_of": null in a client update wipes the column (clients send the full track object on edit — same failure class as the CID wipe fixed in fix(etl): don't let track updates wipe CIDs via explicit null OpenAudio/go-openaudio#410) while the stems row survives. category and parent_track_id then come back NULL from the jsonb and the request 500s again.

Fix

• COALESCE(t.stem_of->>'category', ''), COALESCE(t.track_cid, '')
• parent_track_id now read from the stems join key (never NULL) instead of the jsonb
• Regression test TestGetTrackStemsWipedStemOf: seeds a stems row whose track has no stem_of/orig_filename — 500 before, 200 after

Blast radius

Every stem uploaded after the ~July 12 cutover was invisible in the UI while the NULL-scan bug was live (any parent with ≥1 ETL-shaped stem row 500'd). The DB rows themselves are intact — once the endpoint tolerates NULLs, existing stems reappear with no reindex.

Andrew Lux follow-up (support)

Andrew deleted all of his stems while debugging (one on 7/25 13:38 UTC after 9 retries, a fresh batch uploaded 7/25 14:08–14:50, then a bulk on-chain Track/Delete of everything on 7/27 12:35 UTC). Deleted tracks can't be un-deleted on-chain, so after this deploys he needs to re-upload the stems once via Edit Track → stems on "Alone" — the same flow he used before; nothing was wrong with his uploads.

Go ETL follow-ups (OpenAudio/go-openaudio — patches staged locally, separate PR)

• Persist orig_filename on track create/update (Python parity; never-clear like the CIDs) so new rows don't rely on the title fallback
• Ignore explicit "stem_of": null in track updates (same guard as the Fix quote math #410 CID fix) so client edits can't unlink stems
• Upsert the stems join row when an update carries stem_of (also gives us an on-chain repair path for lost links)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code