Share one bounded WiFi outage and recovery schedule across MQTT, automatic NTP, Companion station ownership and WebConfig. Preserve enabled settings and foreground access while allowing normal sleep after confirmed physical shutdown.
Honor failed SDK client stops before handing off WiFi, protect clean teardown and reconfiguration, and retry transient ESP-NOW channel restoration without repeated disconnects. Add production-method, SDK failure and real sleep regressions to CI.
Validation: native MQTT/NTP/clock/reconnect suites; production power and wrapper failure tests; browser, room HTTP, OTA and combined bridge regressions; Full Heltec V4 repeater, room and companion builds with capability, flash and linked-memory checks.
Starting or restarting MQTT during browser OTA could remove the active AP by forcing STA mode. Defer shared MQTT startup and recovery, and Companion WiFi startup, pending credential reloads and saved-SSID retries, until the live SDK AP releases the driver. Preserve the setup owner's deliberate credential handoff and cooperative stop acknowledgement.
Validated 91 source host tests, including 20 new AP ownership cases and nine reverted controls under ASan/UBSan. Hardware and firmware build qualification remain separate; the Arduino mode snapshot is not atomic.
mikecarper