Five-stage Ghidra headless decompile traces the byte-to-MXSTATUS_PROXY
synthesis path end-to-end across LmxProxy.dll and Lmx.dll. New evidence
files committed alongside R3/R4 verdict update:
- analysis/ghidra/exports/LmxProxy.dll.fire-event-xrefs.md
- analysis/ghidra/exports/LmxProxy.dll.status-synthesis-decompile.md
- analysis/ghidra/exports/LmxProxy.dll.mxstatus-safearray-decompile.md
- analysis/ghidra/exports/Lmx.dll.set-attribute-result-decompile.md
Layer-by-layer findings (bytes flow inward; synthesis flows outward):
1. `Lmx.aaDCT` at 0x10178fc0 is `SysAllocString(L"Lmx.aaDCT")` — a
tracing category BSTR, not a table.
2. `MXSTATUS_PROXY` is a 16-byte marshalled struct (4 × i16 padded
to i32 boundaries with Pack=4) — the OUTPUT of synthesis, not a
lookup entry.
3. `LmxProxy.dll` Fire_* event handlers receive already-populated
`MXSTATUS_PROXY[]` and forward through ATL dispatch — no synthesis.
4. `LmxProxy.dll` Fire_* CALLERS (FUN_1001657f / FUN_10016b50 /
FUN_10016d4b) call FUN_10003f60(out_safearray, in_status_ptr,
count=1) which is a VERBATIM memcpy of an existing 14-byte buffer
into the SAFEARRAY — no transformation.
5. `Lmx.dll`'s `PreboundReference::OnSetAttributeResult` (FUN_10114a90)
receives an already-populated `short *param_7` status buffer. Log
line confirms the layout: `<success %d category %d detectedBy %d
detail %d>`. Dispatches on typed values — synthesis is upstream of
this function too.
The synthesizer is the NMX-frame decoder in Lmx.dll that calls
OnSetAttributeResult / OnGetAttributeResult / equivalent
OperationComplete handler. The decoder takes raw NMX bytes plus
operation context (item handle, engine state, retry state,
correlation id) and computes the populated MXSTATUS_PROXY. There is
NO static lookup table — synthesis is per-message contextual.
Two viable paths to typed promotion (both substantial; neither a
small codec patch):
- Path A: port the synthesizer. ~1-2 weeks. Requires extending the
Rust session to track per-operation context (handles, retries,
correlation ids). Out of V1 scope.
- Path B: empirical capture pairs. ~30 min × 6-10 scenarios. Output
is a (byte, context → status) mapping that approximates without
re-implementing. Risk: mapping is only valid for captured contexts.
R3/R4 stay settled at verbatim-preserve. The .NET reference does
the same for the same reason: the synthesizer is too context-
dependent to mirror without porting the entire operation-tracking
state machine.
Reopen criteria sharpened: either (a) a consumer files a concrete
use case for typed promotion of a specific byte+context combination
(Path B's empirical capture for that one combination is the cheapest
answer); or (b) a major-version bump justifies the state-machine
port (Path A).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Joseph Doherty
460c61df43