diff --git a/tractor/_root.py b/tractor/_root.py
index 403907ec..a7b4d4d2 100644
--- a/tractor/_root.py
+++ b/tractor/_root.py
@@ -280,10 +280,14 @@ async def open_root_actor(
         # start the actor runtime in a new task
         async with trio.open_nursery() as nursery:
 
-            # ``_runtime.async_main()`` creates an internal nursery and
-            # thus blocks here until the entire underlying actor tree has
-            # terminated thereby conducting structured concurrency.
-
+            # ``_runtime.async_main()`` creates an internal nursery
+            # and blocks here until any underlying actor(-process)
+            # tree has terminated thereby conducting so called
+            # "end-to-end" structured concurrency throughout an
+            # entire hierarchical python sub-process set; all
+            # "actor runtime" primitives are SC-compat and thus all
+            # transitively spawned actors/processes must be as
+            # well.
             await nursery.start(
                 partial(
                     async_main,
diff --git a/tractor/_runtime.py b/tractor/_runtime.py
index d2a9e405..ed1e5f85 100644
--- a/tractor/_runtime.py
+++ b/tractor/_runtime.py
@@ -1514,13 +1514,22 @@ async def async_main(
                 # - root actor: the ``accept_addr`` passed to this method
                 assert accept_addrs
 
-                actor._server_n = await service_nursery.start(
-                    partial(
-                        actor._serve_forever,
-                        service_nursery,
-                        listen_sockaddrs=accept_addrs,
+                try:
+                    actor._server_n = await service_nursery.start(
+                        partial(
+                            actor._serve_forever,
+                            service_nursery,
+                            listen_sockaddrs=accept_addrs,
+                        )
                     )
-                )
+                except OSError as oserr:
+                    # NOTE: always allow runtime hackers to debug
+                    # tranport address bind errors - normally it's
+                    # something silly like the wrong socket-address
+                    # passed via a config or CLI Bo
+                    entered_debug = await _debug._maybe_enter_pm(oserr)
+                    raise
+
                 accept_addrs: list[tuple[str, int]] = actor.accept_addrs
 
                 # NOTE: only set the loopback addr for the