well for some reason is the external fetch library failing now, so replaced with whatever fetch node itself has, also changed shell script for starting signaling server to clean it up previous session and finally bothered moving tokens over to .env file

.gitignore

@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@ signaling.log
 streaming-agent/node_modules/
 dxvk-cache
 mesa-shader-cache
+.env

start-signaling.sh

@@ -1,7 +1,34 @@
 #!/bin/bash
-cd ~/webclient_css_ze/streaming-agent
-CF_APP_ID= CF_APP_TOKEN= NAME_SALT= CONTAINER_NAME=css-test  node signaling-server.js &> ../signaling.log &
-echo "Signaling server started (PID $!), logs at webclient_css_ze/signaling.log"
+# Starts the signaling server. Secrets come from .env next to this script
+set -e
+SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
+ENV_FILE="$SCRIPT_DIR/.env"
 
-#pkill -f signaling-server.js
-#pgrep -f signaling-server.js
+if [ ! -f "$ENV_FILE" ]; then
+    echo "Missing $ENV_FILE — copy .env.example to .env and fill in the values." >&2
+    exit 1
+fi
+
+# Export every variable defined in .env
+set -a
+source "$ENV_FILE"
+set +a
+
+for var in CF_APP_ID CF_APP_TOKEN NAME_SALT; do
+    if [ -z "${!var}" ]; then
+        echo "$var is not set in $ENV_FILE" >&2
+        exit 1
+    fi
+done
+export CONTAINER_NAME="${CONTAINER_NAME:-css-test}"
+
+# Stop any old instance and wait until it is gone (frees port 3000)
+pkill -f signaling-server.js || true
+for i in $(seq 1 10); do
+    pgrep -f signaling-server.js > /dev/null || break
+    sleep 0.5
+done
+
+cd "$SCRIPT_DIR/streaming-agent"
+node signaling-server.js &> "$SCRIPT_DIR/signaling.log" &
+echo "Signaling server started (PID $!), logs at $SCRIPT_DIR/signaling.log"

streaming-agent/package.json

@@ -8,8 +8,10 @@
     "signaling": "node signaling-server.js"
   },
   "dependencies": {
-    "node-fetch": "^2.7.0",
     "ws": "^8.18.0",
     "express": "^4.21.0"
+  },
+  "engines": {
+    "node": ">=18"
   }
 }

streaming-agent/signaling-server.js

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ console.error = (...args) => _origError(`[${new Date().toISOString()}]`, ...args
 const express    = require('express');
 const http       = require('http');
 const WebSocket  = require('ws');
-const fetch      = require('node-fetch');
+// fetch is built into Node 18+ (node-fetch 2.x threw 'Premature close' on CF responses)
 const path       = require('path');
 const { spawn, execSync } = require('child_process');
 const dns        = require('dns').promises;
@@ -40,27 +40,37 @@ if (!CF_APP_ID || !CF_APP_TOKEN) {
 }
 
 // ── Cloudflare API helpers ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-async function cfPost(path, body) {
-  const res = await fetch(`${CF_BASE}${path}`, {
-    method: 'POST',
-    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Authorization': `Bearer ${CF_APP_TOKEN}` },
-    body: JSON.stringify(body),
-  });
-  const json = await res.json();
-  if (json.errorCode) throw new Error(`CF API error: ${json.errorDescription}`);
+async function cfRequest(method, path, body) {
+  const started = Date.now();
+  let res, text;
+  try {
+    res = await fetch(`${CF_BASE}${path}`, {
+      method,
+      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Authorization': `Bearer ${CF_APP_TOKEN}` },
+      body: JSON.stringify(body),
+      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(15000),
+    });
+    text = await res.text();
+  } catch (e) {
+    console.error(`[sig] CF ${method} ${path} failed after ${Date.now() - started}ms: ${e.name}: ${e.message}`);
+    throw new Error('Stream service unreachable, please try again');
+  }
+  let json;
+  try {
+    json = JSON.parse(text);
+  } catch {
+    console.error(`[sig] CF ${method} ${path} returned non-JSON (HTTP ${res.status}): ${text.slice(0, 300)}`);
+    throw new Error('Stream service returned an invalid response');
+  }
+  if (json.errorCode) {
+    console.error(`[sig] CF ${method} ${path} error (HTTP ${res.status}): ${json.errorCode} ${json.errorDescription}`);
+    throw new Error('Stream setup failed, please try again');
+  }
   return json;
 }
 
-async function cfPut(path, body) {
-  const res = await fetch(`${CF_BASE}${path}`, {
-    method: 'PUT',
-    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Authorization': `Bearer ${CF_APP_TOKEN}` },
-    body: JSON.stringify(body),
-  });
-  const json = await res.json();
-  if (json.errorCode) throw new Error(`CF API error: ${json.errorDescription}`);
-  return json;
-}
+const cfPost = (path, body) => cfRequest('POST', path, body);
+const cfPut  = (path, body) => cfRequest('PUT',  path, body);
 
 // ── Express + WebSocket ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 const app    = express();