🐛 Riverpod: AsyncNotifier rebuilds repeatedly when build() throws and watches a keepAlive provider

[EssaCoder]

✅ Scenario

I have:

• A SessionState provider with keepAlive: true
• A DashboardState provider with keepAlive: false
  (and it throws from _getData())

---

🧪 Code Example

// session_state.dart
import 'package:riverpod_annotation/riverpod_annotation.dart';

part 'session_state.g.dart';

@Riverpod(keepAlive: true)
class SessionState extends _$SessionState {
  @override
  Future<String> build() async {
    await Future.delayed(Duration(milliseconds: 100));
    return 'session_token'; // remains cached due to keepAlive: true
  }
}

// dashboard_state.dart
import 'package:riverpod_annotation/riverpod_annotation.dart';
import 'session_state.dart'; // import the session provider

part 'dashboard_state.g.dart';

@Riverpod(keepAlive: false)
class DashboardState extends _$DashboardState {
  @override
  Future<List<String>> build() async {
    // Watch session — causes rebuild on new value
    ref.watch(sessionStateProvider);

    // Always throws to simulate dashboard fetch failure
    throw Exception('🚨 Failed to fetch dashboard data');
  }
}

---

❌ Actual Behavior

Even though SessionState is stable and uses keepAlive: true, the DashboardState continues to rebuild every time the widget re-renders or the sessionStateProvider emits (e.g., if it's refreshed), because the build() of DashboardState throws.

This leads to:

• Repeated rebuilds
• UI flickering
• Infinite load-error cycle

---

✅ Expected Behavior

If the session is stable and DashboardState.build() throws once, the error should be cached and not retried unless:

• .refresh() is called explicitly
• or SessionState emits a new value (not same value again)

---

[EssaCoder]

Resolved ✅

I initially misunderstood the retry behavior. It turns out that in flutter_riverpod: ^3.0.0-dev.15, you can disable auto-retry by passing an inline function to ProviderScope like this:

ProviderScope(
  retry: (retryCount, error) => null,
  child: MyApp(),
);