Recognise Ardour on Ubuntu: the launcher and the gate were blind to it

Ardour's real binary is ardour-8.4.0~ds1 and its process name is ArdourGUI. The
launcher's exe pattern could not match the Debian ~ds1 suffix, so it believed
Ardour was down and spawned a second instance on the same session (the 09-05
duplicate, recorded as 'not reproducible', was never measured against this
build). The gate's pgrep -x names never matched either, so its 'Ardour is open'
precondition was always false and SC -> Ardour and gig-record-on-target were
skipped on every run.

tools/bridge/launchers.py

@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ LAUNCHERS = [
      "candidates": ["ardour9", "ardour8", "ardour7", "ardour6", "ardour"],
      "args": ([str(ARDOUR_SESSION)] if ARDOUR_SESSION.exists() else []),
      "wrap": ["pw-jack"],
-     "exe": r"[Aa]rdour[-\d.]*$"},
+     "exe": r"[Aa]rdour\d*(?:-\d[\w.~+-]*)?$"},
     # PLN, 2026-09-22: "have a QjackCTL launcher entry for 'pw-link qjackctl' in
     # the parvagues gear tray, so i can easily open it when i wanna" — the row
     # already existed, but bare; `pw-link` is the link-making tool, the launcher

tools/bridge/tests/test_launchers.py

@@ -77,6 +77,22 @@ def test_the_ardour_exe_pattern_matches_a_version_suffixed_binary():
         assert L.is_running(spec, [(exe, f"/usr/bin/{exe}")]) is True, exe
 
 
+def test_the_ubuntu_debian_build_name_is_recognised_as_ardour():
+    """2026-10-11: the real argv0 here is `ardour-8.4.0~ds1` (a Debian `~ds1`
+    suffix). The old pattern `[Aa]rdour[-\\d.]*$` could not match it, so the
+    launcher believed Ardour was down while it ran and started a SECOND one on the
+    same session. The 2026-09-05 note called that false negative 'not reproducible';
+    it was only never measured against this build."""
+    spec = L.BY_KEY["ardour"]
+    assert L.is_running(spec, [("ardour-8.4.0~ds1", "/usr/lib/ardour8/ardour-8.4.0~ds1 x.ardour")]) is True
+
+
+def test_ardours_helper_scripts_are_not_a_running_ardour():
+    spec = L.BY_KEY["ardour"]
+    for exe in ("ardour-avahi", "ardour8-lua", "ardour-session-utils", "tidal-ardour-autoroute.sh"):
+        assert L.is_running(spec, [(exe, f"/usr/lib/ardour8/{exe}")]) is False, exe
+
+
 def test_a_session_filename_ending_in_dot_ardour_is_not_a_running_ardour():
     spec = L.BY_KEY["ardour"]
     assert L.is_running(spec, [("cp", "cp 'Tidal Live.ardour' /tmp")]) is False

tools/check-gig.py

@@ -597,9 +597,16 @@ def _running(*names: str) -> bool:
 # /usr/lib/ardour8, so the process name is `ardour` for the first moment and
 # `ardour-8.x` after. Match both generations by exact name; the wrapper case is
 # covered by "ardour" itself.
+#
+# The names above are NOT what Ubuntu runs. Ardour sets its process name to
+# `ArdourGUI`, and the real binary (`ardour-8.4.0~ds1`) is cut to 15 characters
+# by the kernel, so none of the exact names ever matched: the "Ardour is open"
+# precondition was always false and `SC -> Ardour` and `gig-record on target`
+# were SKIPPED on every run, including the day the signal path they probe broke
+# (2026-10-11). `ArdourGUI` is the name that is actually there.
 PRECONDITIONS = {
     "scsynth": lambda: _running("scsynth"),
-    "ardour": lambda: _running("ardour", "ardour8", "ardour9",
+    "ardour": lambda: _running("ArdourGUI", "ardour", "ardour8", "ardour9",
                                "ardour-8.4.0", "ardour-8.6.0"),
 }
 _ABSENT = {

tools/tests/test_check_gig.py

@@ -292,3 +292,15 @@ def test_a_dead_surface_driver_blocks_the_launch():
     """
     probe = next(p for p in CG.PROBES if p.name == "LCXL LEDs")
     assert probe.kind == gig_gate.BLOCK
+
+
+
+def test_the_ardour_precondition_asks_for_the_name_ardour_actually_has(monkeypatch):
+    """2026-10-11: Ardour's process name is `ArdourGUI` and its binary name is cut
+    to 15 characters, so the exact names the gate used never matched. The
+    precondition was always false and `SC -> Ardour` / `gig-record on target` were
+    skipped on every run, including the day the path they probe broke."""
+    asked = []
+    monkeypatch.setattr(CG, "_running", lambda *names: asked.extend(names) or False)
+    CG.PRECONDITIONS["ardour"]()
+    assert "ArdourGUI" in asked