Invalid GPU timing reading

A D26 scoreboard or GPU-leased reading is invalid because foreign GPU activity was observed, an actual game executable was present, or monitoring was unavailable. This is not an engine budget failure. Evidence retains process names, PIDs, peak utilization and UTC epoch-millisecond time ranges.

#Common causes

• Foreign processes used more than 10% summed GPU-engine utilization for at least five consecutive samples. DWM counts only its excess over a 3% allowance; System (PID 4) and CSRSS are retained as information.
• An actual game executable in the data-driven presence list was active. Idle services, launchers, tray apps and overlays never invalidate by presence alone; they count through measured GPU utilization.
• No valid Windows per-process GPU sample arrived for five seconds or more. Vanished instances and short invalid-data reads retry automatically; only rows overlapping a sustained gap are unmonitored.

#Fixes

• Close or pause foreign GPU work yourself, then rerun; Ara never terminates other applications.

• Use ara-dev gpu --wait-for-quiet -- COMMAND or ara-dev d26 --wait-for-quiet to poll for a quiet three-second baseline before starting.

• Inspect gpu-load.json or the leased reading's reported evidence path. Restore unavailable Windows GPU counters before relying on timing results. INVALID exits with code 3.

• D26 invalidates overlapping row windows only. Re-score saved evidence with ara-dev d26 --reclassify <reading-dir>; policy options are --foreign-gpu-percent, --foreign-gpu-samples and --dwm-allowance-percent. Original reports are preserved.

• Code: ARA_GPU_FOREIGN_LOAD (slot 6090)

• Constant: GPU_FOREIGN_LOAD

• Reported by: ara-dev