WebSocket Reconnection: Handling Network Instability

WebSocket Reconnection: Handling Network Instability

Building Hoop Almanac's real-time draft system taught me hard lessons about WebSocket reliability.

The Bug

Users on mobile networks would disconnect frequently. Our naive reconnection logic created cascading failures—duplicate events, out-of-sync state, and confused users.

The Solution: Exponential Backoff with Jitter

Key Insight

The jitter is crucial. Without it, all disconnected clients reconnect simultaneously, overwhelming the server.