Fix ticket page 500 from unbounded audit timeline (#112)

A ticket updated by hwmonDaemon had ~52k audit rows; getTicketTimeline()
loaded all of them and exhausted PHP's 128MB memory limit, so the ticket
page returned 500. Not related to the MCP server.

- getTicketTimeline() takes a limit (newest first). The ticket page shows
  the latest 500 events with a note when older ones are omitted; the JSON
  export caps at 5000.
- create_ticket_api.php: the description is refreshed on every run, and
  that alone wrote a reason-only audit row every few minutes per open
  ticket. Audit only real title/priority changes.
- create_ticket_api.php: after creating a brand-new ticket the dedup retry
  loop fell through into a second iteration on a closed connection,
  appending a 500 error body after the success response. Exit instead.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01MGDKHiU5RJdo3dqQUDow3X

api/export_tickets.php

@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ try {
 
         // Load flat comment list (no threading nesting in export)
         $rawComments = $commentModel->getCommentsByTicketId($ticket['ticket_id'], false);
-        $timeline    = $auditLogModel->getTicketTimeline((string)$ticket['ticket_id']);
+        $timeline    = $auditLogModel->getTicketTimeline((string)$ticket['ticket_id'], 5000);
 
         $comments = array_map(function ($c) {
             return [

controllers/TicketController.php

@@ -54,8 +54,14 @@ class TicketController
         $totalComments    = $this->commentModel->getCommentCount((int)$id);
         $comments         = $this->commentModel->getCommentsByTicketId($id, true, $commentPageSize, 0);
 
-        // Get timeline for this ticket
-        $timeline = $this->auditLogModel->getTicketTimeline($id);
+        // Get the newest timeline events for this ticket. One extra row is
+        // fetched only to tell the view that older events were left out.
+        $timelineLimit     = 500;
+        $timeline          = $this->auditLogModel->getTicketTimeline($id, $timelineLimit + 1);
+        $timelineTruncated = count($timeline) > $timelineLimit;
+        if ($timelineTruncated) {
+            array_pop($timeline);
+        }
 
         // Get all users for assignment dropdown
         $allUsers = $this->userModel->getAllUsers();

create_ticket_api.php

@@ -328,10 +328,17 @@ for ($dedupAttempt = 1; $dedupAttempt <= $maxDedupAttempts; $dedupAttempt++) {
                     $commentStmt->close();
                 }
 
-                $auditLog->log($userId, 'update', 'ticket', $existingId, array_merge(
-                    array_diff_key($changes, ['description_refreshed' => true]),
-                    ['reason' => 'auto-updated by hwmonDaemon (condition worsened)']
-                ));
+                // Audit only real title/priority changes. The description is
+                // refreshed on every run, and logging that alone wrote a
+                // reason-only row every few minutes per open ticket — 50k+ rows
+                // on one ticket, which broke its page (tinker_tickets#112).
+                $auditedChanges = array_diff_key($changes, ['description_refreshed' => true]);
+                if (!empty($auditedChanges)) {
+                    $auditLog->log($userId, 'update', 'ticket', $existingId, array_merge(
+                        $auditedChanges,
+                        ['reason' => 'auto-updated by hwmonDaemon (condition worsened)']
+                    ));
+                }
 
                 // Only notify on priority escalation — title-only updates (e.g. rising
                 // Power_On_Hours counter) should not generate a Matrix ping every hour.
@@ -581,4 +588,8 @@ for ($dedupAttempt = 1; $dedupAttempt <= $maxDedupAttempts; $dedupAttempt++) {
         http_response_code(500);
         echo json_encode(['success' => false, 'error' => 'Internal server error']);
     }
+    // Done — only the deadlock `continue` above may run the loop again.
+    // Falling through re-entered it on a closed connection, appending a
+    // 500 error body after the success response for every new ticket.
+    exit;
 }

models/AuditLogModel.php

@@ -561,20 +561,27 @@ class AuditLogModel
      * Get formatted timeline for a specific ticket
      * Includes all ticket updates and comments
      *
+     * Returns only the newest $limit events: a ticket touched by an automated
+     * reporter can accumulate tens of thousands of rows, and loading them all
+     * exhausted PHP memory on the ticket page (tinker_tickets#112).
+     *
      * @param string $ticketId Ticket ID
+     * @param int $limit Maximum number of events (newest first)
      * @return array Timeline events
      */
-    public function getTicketTimeline($ticketId)
+    public function getTicketTimeline($ticketId, $limit = self::DEFAULT_LIMIT)
     {
+        $limit = $this->validateLimit((int)$limit, self::EXPORT_LIMIT);
         $stmt = $this->conn->prepare(
             "SELECT al.*, u.username, u.display_name
              FROM audit_log al
              LEFT JOIN users u ON al.user_id = u.user_id
              WHERE (al.entity_type = 'ticket' AND al.entity_id = ?)
                 OR (al.entity_type = 'comment' AND JSON_UNQUOTE(JSON_EXTRACT(al.details, '$.ticket_id')) = ?)
-             ORDER BY al.created_at DESC"
+             ORDER BY al.created_at DESC, al.audit_id DESC
+             LIMIT ?"
         );
-        $stmt->bind_param("ss", $ticketId, $ticketId);
+        $stmt->bind_param("ssi", $ticketId, $ticketId, $limit);
         $stmt->execute();
         $result = $stmt->get_result();
 

views/TicketView.php

@@ -819,6 +819,9 @@ document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
             </div>
           <?php endforeach ?>
         </div>
+            <?php if (!empty($timelineTruncated)) : ?>
+          <div class="lt-empty lt-text-xs">Showing the <?= count($timeline) ?> most recent events; older activity is in the audit log.</div>
+            <?php endif ?>
       <?php endif ?>
     </div>
   </div>