fix: answer the page when a background handler throws (closes #280)

handleRpc(...).then(sendResponse) had no .catch(), and sendResponse is the only
thing that settles the dApp's window.ethereum.request() promise. Any throw
inside handleRpc therefore sent nothing back: the content script posted nothing,
and the page's promise stayed pending forever with no error and no timeout,
indistinguishable from a slow wallet. handleRpc does real work -- state loads,
provider calls, transaction population, approval plumbing -- so "it does not
throw today" was not a property anyone was maintaining.

A rejected handleRpc now answers { code: -32603, message }. -32603 is the
JSON-RPC internal error EIP-1474 defines and EIP-1193 defers to for RPC-layer
failures; no EIP-1193 4xxx code describes "the wallet broke" and none was
invented for it. Nothing is stripped or overwritten by this: every deliberately
coded rejection the wallet emits (4001, 4100, 4902) is a returned value, not a
throw, so it travels the resolved path and never reaches this catch. The cause
is not put in the message: the page gets a stable sentence, the background
console gets the method and the throw, so the failure is visible rather than
swallowed.

The two async IIFEs behind AUTISTMASK_TX_RESPONSE and AUTISTMASK_SIGN_RESPONSE
are the same shape one level down. Every statement is inside a try, but a throw
from one of the catch blocks escapes as an unhandled rejection and neither the
popup nor the page is answered. Each gets a last-resort .catch() that settles
the approval through settleApproval() -- the existing chokepoint, with no new
delete or resolve -- and answers the popup. The transaction one tracks the phase
it is in and reports that: an escape from the verify catch runs before
broadcastTransaction() is ever called, so it says the request is gone rather
than that it may still have reached the network, and only an escape from the
broadcast catch keeps the warning about a second send. Every other message
handler on the path is synchronous and cannot leave a promise pending.

Each of the four tests is driven by a real failure rather than a hook in the
handler: a rejecting extension-storage read, which getState() awaits unguarded,
and a failure classifier that throws while classifying a genuine verification or
broadcast failure. All four were demonstrated failing against the unfixed code,
the RPC one with sendResponse at zero calls, which is precisely the page-side
hang. The two transaction cases also assert the sentence describeSigningFailure
builds for each stage, which is the copy the user reads.

TODO.md

@@ -45,6 +45,27 @@ undefined identifiers, which is how
 
 # Completed Steps
 
+- 2026-08-14: A background message handler that throws now rejects the page
+  instead of hanging it. `handleRpc(...).then(sendResponse)` had no `.catch()`,
+  and `sendResponse` is the only thing that settles the dApp's
+  `window.ethereum.request()` promise — so any throw inside `handleRpc` left
+  that promise pending forever, with no error and no timeout, indistinguishable
+  from a slow wallet. It now answers `{ code: -32603, message }` (the JSON-RPC
+  internal error EIP-1474 defines and EIP-1193 defers to; no EIP-1193 4xxx code
+  describes "the wallet broke" and none was invented) and logs the method and
+  the throw to the background console rather than swallowing them. The two async
+  IIFEs behind `AUTISTMASK_TX_RESPONSE` and `AUTISTMASK_SIGN_RESPONSE` were the
+  same shape one level down — every statement inside a `try`, but a throw out of
+  a `catch` block escaping unhandled — and each got a last-resort `.catch()`
+  settling the approval through `settleApproval()` and answering the popup. The
+  transaction one tracks which phase it escaped from and reports that, so an
+  escape before `broadcastTransaction()` says the request is gone rather than
+  that it may still have reached the network. Every other handler on the path is
+  synchronous. All four are driven by real failures — a rejecting storage read,
+  and a failure classifier that throws while classifying a genuine verification
+  or broadcast failure — and were demonstrated failing first, the RPC one with
+  `sendResponse` at zero calls
+  ([#280](https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/AutistMask/issues/280)).
 - 2026-08-12: EIP-1193 error codes now reach the page. `src/content/inpage.js`
   rebuilt every failure as `new Error(error.message)`, so the code the
   background produced and the content script relayed intact was dropped in the