fraud agent never exited review state on pending 3ds and timed out

TL;DR

The agent parks a transaction in review while waiting for a 3D Secure challenge that may never complete, and the whole run hangs on it. Fix: never block on 3DS. Give the review state a TTL, release the worker, and let a scheduler re-check at expiry. Waiting is a scheduled job, not a held thread.

fraud agent never exited review state on pending 3ds and timed out

Use this when

• Run elapsed time tracks a single pending-3DS transaction with no progress.
• Workers pile up behind one transaction stuck in review.
• Runs time out instead of completing when 3DS challenges are pending.

Not for this skill when

• Scoring itself is slow. That is a performance problem, not a parked state.
• 3DS completes but the result is wrong. That is an integration bug.

Steps

1. Confirm the hang: find runs where the log shows no progress while one transaction sits in review. Verify: elapsed time correlates with one pending-3DS transaction.
2. Add a TTL to the review state, matched to your 3DS expiry window. Verify: every parked state record carries an expires-at timestamp.
3. On entering review for 3DS, release the worker and schedule a re-check at expiry. Verify: the worker picks up the next transaction immediately.
4. At expiry, re-read the 3DS outcome: completed means resume scoring, still pending means move to a timed-out state with a reason code. Verify: every parked transaction reaches a terminal state.
5. Alert on transactions that time out repeatedly from the same device or card. Verify: repeat timeouts surface as a pattern instead of silent drops.

Variant phrasings

agent hangs on pending 3ds

Common phrasing.

3ds pending review timeout

State-focused search.

fraud agent waits for 3ds forever

Agent-focused phrasing.

Compatibility: any async review pipeline; the scheduler can be a cron job, a delayed queue, or the agent's own tick loop.

Why it happens

The agent was written as if 3DS completes synchronously. In reality the customer may abandon, the bank page may fail, or the challenge may expire. A blocking wait on an external human action is a guaranteed hang.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Customers who complete 3DS after the TTL: allow reopening from the timed-out state if your policy permits, with the late result logged.
• TTLs shorter than the bank's challenge window cause false timeouts; align with the card network's expiry.
• Never auto-approve on timeout. Timed out means escalate or decline per policy, never silent approval.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pstWmKqTeiPYpVxcaRh9IwDg