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Lost Signal / Lost Wakeup

Medium Priority13 min readUpdated June 12, 2026

Lost Signal / Lost Wakeup is one of the most subtle and dangerous concurrency bugs. It happens when a thread sends a signal before another thread has started waiting for it, causing the signal to be missed forever.

This chapter explores what lost signal is, why it happens, how to recognize them in production, and the defensive patterns that prevent them.

What is a Lost Signal?

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