From 5968a3c773140d71b2e006f3974dbb0671d7eca6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: goodboy <goodboy_foss@protonmail.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:45:24 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Use `'<unknown>'` for unresolvable `.boxed_type_str`

Add a teensie unit test to match.

(this patch was generated in some part by [`claude-code`][claude-code-gh])
[claude-code-gh]: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code
---
 tests/test_reg_err_types.py | 10 ++++++++++
 tractor/_exceptions.py      |  2 +-
 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/tests/test_reg_err_types.py b/tests/test_reg_err_types.py
index 1164d246..ab14ae5a 100644
--- a/tests/test_reg_err_types.py
+++ b/tests/test_reg_err_types.py
@@ -165,6 +165,16 @@ class TestRegErrTypesPlumbing:
             is tractor.ContextCancelled
         )
 
+    def test_boxed_type_str_without_ipc_msg(self):
+        '''
+        When a `RemoteActorError` is constructed
+        without an IPC msg (and no resolvable type),
+        `.boxed_type_str` should return `'<unknown>'`.
+
+        '''
+        rae = RemoteActorError('test')
+        assert rae.boxed_type_str == '<unknown>'
+
 
 # -- IPC-level integration tests --
 
diff --git a/tractor/_exceptions.py b/tractor/_exceptions.py
index 3e1624e2..21d76d1c 100644
--- a/tractor/_exceptions.py
+++ b/tractor/_exceptions.py
@@ -491,7 +491,7 @@ class RemoteActorError(Exception):
         if self._ipc_msg:
             return self._ipc_msg.boxed_type_str
 
-        return ''
+        return '<unknown>'
 
     @property
     def boxed_type(self) -> Type[BaseException]: