Concurrent MCP OAuth token-refresh for two servers cancels one reconnect (self-heals, but surfaces a false hard-failure error) #4842

Describe the bug

When two remote HTTP MCP servers (atlassian-mcp and ado-remote-mcp) both receive a 401 OAuth
challenge at nearly the same moment, the concurrent background token-refresh/reconnect for one of
them gets cancelled (quit_reason":"Cancelled"), producing a foreground-facing error:

Failed to refresh foreground session after MCP OAuth: Error: MCP server "ado-remote-mcp" failed to
reconnect: MCP server "ado-remote-mcp" connection was cancelled

The CLI self-heals a few seconds later (Successfully authenticated with ado-remote-mcp), so the
server ends up usable, but the error surfaces to the user as an alarming failure
(Failed to connect to MCP server "ado-remote-mcp": ... connection was cancelled. Execute '/mcp show ado-remote-mcp' to inspect or check the logs.) for a condition that isn't actually a lasting failure.

This looks related to (but distinct from) #4753, #4084, and #3706 — those involve session-resume
handover, OAuth routed to the wrong handler, and reconnect fan-out across many hosts, respectively.
This report is specifically about two servers hitting an expired-token 401 at the same time,
where the reconnect task for one server is cancelled — apparently pre-empted by the other server's
concurrent OAuth flow — and only recovers via a fully independent retry moments later.

Affected version

1.0.83

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure two remote HTTP MCP servers with OAuth (e.g. atlassian-mcp and an Azure DevOps
   remote MCP server) such that both access tokens expire around the same time.
2. Start (or resume) a session after both tokens have expired.
3. Both servers receive a 401 at nearly the same timestamp and each begins a background
   OAuth refresh/reconnect.
4. One server's reconnect task is cancelled mid-flight; the CLI logs an ERROR and (in this
   instance) also surfaces Failed to refresh foreground session after MCP OAuth: ... connection was cancelled to the user.
5. ~3 seconds later, a fresh authentication attempt for the same server succeeds
   (Successfully authenticated with <server>), and the server becomes usable — but only after
   the alarming error has already been shown.

Actual log excerpt (redacted server URLs)

23:12:43.336Z [ERROR] [rust:rmcp::transport::worker] worker quit with fatal: Transport channel closed,
  when Client(OAuthChallenge { ... "https://mcp.atlassian.com/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/v2/mcp" ...
  response: McpOAuthHttpResponse { status_code: 401, ... } })
23:12:43.535Z [ERROR] Refreshing authentication for atlassian-mcp...
23:12:43.972Z [ERROR] Successfully authenticated with atlassian-mcp
23:12:44.106Z [ERROR] [rust:rmcp::transport::worker] worker quit with fatal: Transport channel closed,
  when Client(OAuthChallenge { ... "https://mcp.dev.azure.com/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/<org>" ...
  response: McpOAuthHttpResponse { status_code: 401, ... } })
23:12:45.148Z [ERROR] [rust:rmcp::transport::worker] worker quit with fatal: Transport channel closed, ... (atlassian, again)
23:12:45.327Z [INFO]  [rust:rmcp::service] task cancelled
23:12:45.327Z [INFO]  [rust:rmcp::service] task cancelled
23:12:45.327Z [WARNING] [rust:copilot_runtime::session::mcp::agent_host] MCP background reconnect after
  OAuth still needs auth {"server":"ado-remote-mcp"}
23:12:45.327Z [INFO]  [rust:rmcp::service] serve finished {"quit_reason":"Cancelled"}
23:12:45.752Z [ERROR] Failed to refresh foreground session after MCP OAuth: Error: MCP server
  "ado-remote-mcp" failed to reconnect: MCP server "ado-remote-mcp" connection was cancelled
23:12:48.220Z [ERROR] Successfully authenticated with ado-remote-mcp

Expected behavior

• Concurrent token refreshes for independent MCP servers should not cancel one another's
  reconnect task.
• If a reconnect is transiently cancelled but recovers within a few seconds, that should not be
  surfaced to the user as a hard failure (or should be labeled as transient/retrying, not as an
  actionable error pointing at /mcp show).
• Ideally the retry/backoff for concurrent OAuth refreshes across multiple servers should be
  serialized or otherwise made non-cancelling of sibling in-flight reconnects.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 (build 26200)
• CLI version: 1.0.83 (exe built 2026-09-04)
• MCP servers involved: atlassian-mcp (remote HTTP, OAuth), ado-remote-mcp (remote HTTP, OAuth,
  Azure DevOps)
• Both servers configured as type: "http" with OAuth in .copilot/mcp-config.json / repo
  .github/mcp.json

Additional context

Ruled out as a cause: duplicate/conflicting MCP server definitions across repo (.github/mcp.json)
and local (~/.copilot/mcp-config.json) scopes for the same server name — the cancellation occurs
during the concurrent-401 OAuth refresh path itself (rmcp::service/agent_host logs), independent
of which scope's config won. Removing the local duplicate did not change this behavior on retest;
it's a config hygiene fix but not the root cause of the cancellation.