BidEngine shellScript strategy bypassed: bids submitted without invoking price script (v0.12.0)

[Metz-Live]

Describe the bug

BidEngine shellScript strategy is frequently bypassed — the provider daemon submits bids using internal scale parameters instead of calling the configured price script. All script logic including filtering (exit 1) and custom pricing is ignored.

• account address = akash15uc29tz7l7umw77rh7l5mh90jzq4h8kqc36vu0
• deployment sequence = N/A (affects all incoming orders)
• deploy.yaml = N/A (provider-side bug)

To Reproduce

1. Configure provider with AKASH_BID_PRICE_STRATEGY=shellScript
2. Set AKASH_BID_PRICE_SCRIPT_PATH=/scripts/price_script.sh
3. Add logging at line 1 of script:

echo "DEBUG SCRIPT START: $(date +%H:%M:%S.%3N)" >&2

4. Observe provider logs — many bids are submitted without DEBUG SCRIPT START appearing

Expected behavior

Every bid submitted by the provider should be preceded by a script invocation. If the script returns exit 1, no bid should be submitted.

Logs

When bug occurs — script never started, bid submitted via internal fallback:

INF Reservation fulfilled    order=akash15uc29tz7.../26879854/1/1
DBG submitting fulfillment   order=akash15uc29tz7.../26879854/1/1 price=63uact
INF bid complete             order=akash15uc29tz7.../26879854/1/1

When working correctly — script called, exit 1 respected:

ERR error calculating price error="exit status 1: script failure
DEBUG SCRIPT START: 10:09:03.609
DEBUG UTIL FIELDS: alloc_cpu=512000 avail_cpu=480250 ...
DEBUG DECISION: CPU_ONLY resources too small cpu_m=4000

Desktop

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04
• Provider version: v0.12.0
• Kubernetes: k3s
• Chain: akashnet-2

Additional context

• Confirmed on two independent providers: provider.metz.live and provider.akash.metz.live
• Script hash verified identical between local file and pod (md5sum match)
• curl latency inside pod: 10–23ms (well within 500ms timeout)
• All price_target_* set to 0 to disable fallback — bug persists
• No consistent trigger pattern identified from logs alone
• Results in: unwanted bids on filtered jobs, incorrect prices, wasted gas

[Zblocker64]

please install your provider like this

cd /root/provider

helm install akash-provider akash/provider \
  -n akash-services \
  -f provider.yaml \
  --set bidpricescript="$(cat price_script.sh | openssl base64 -A)"