diff --git a/apps/darkroom-android/src/lib.rs b/apps/darkroom-android/src/lib.rs
index 7a18205..7ce71bc 100644
--- a/apps/darkroom-android/src/lib.rs
+++ b/apps/darkroom-android/src/lib.rs
@@ -31,9 +31,50 @@ mod intents;
 /// Android application entry point, called by android-activity's glue.
 #[no_mangle]
 fn android_main(app: slint::android::AndroidApp) {
-    // Before the logger, because the logger needs somewhere to write, and
-    // before any `log::` call at all, because records emitted before this line
-    // reach nothing.
+    // **The first statement in the process, and it has to be.** Everything
+    // between here and `install` returning runs with no logger installed at
+    // all: asking the activity for its external directory, `create_dir_all`
+    // and an `open` on a FUSE-backed volume the system may still be mounting.
+    // A failure or a stall in any of it is invisible on every surface there
+    // is — no file yet, and nothing in logcat either — which is precisely the
+    // kind of launch logcat exists to debug.
+    //
+    // `AndroidLogger` rather than `init_once`, so logcat can be *teed* rather
+    // than replaced: `init_once` installs itself as the global logger and
+    // there is only one of those. Everything that reached logcat before the
+    // file existed still reaches it, at the same level and under the same tag;
+    // the file is strictly additional.
+    let console = android_logger::AndroidLogger::new(
+        android_logger::Config::default()
+            .with_max_level(log::LevelFilter::Info)
+            .with_tag("DarkRoom"),
+    );
+
+    // Handed to the logger directly, and **not** written as `log::info!`,
+    // which here would compile and emit nothing: the facade's maximum level is
+    // `Off` until `diagnostics::install` sets it, and the macro tests that
+    // before it reaches any logger at all. This call skips the facade and
+    // reaches `__android_log_write` with nothing in between.
+    //
+    // That independence is the second reason for it. When the log is silent,
+    // this line is what says which half is at fault: present here and absent
+    // below means the `log` wiring, absent in both means liblog is not
+    // delivering this process's records — a question about the device, which
+    // no amount of reading this file can answer.
+    log::Log::log(
+        &console,
+        &log::Record::builder()
+            .level(log::Level::Info)
+            .target(module_path!())
+            .module_path(Some(module_path!()))
+            .args(format_args!(
+                "DarkRoom v{} starting; logcat only until the log file opens",
+                env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION")
+            ))
+            .build(),
+    );
+
+    // Before the file logger, because it needs somewhere to write.
     //
     // **The external directory, not the internal one, and the difference is
     // the entire point of the file.** Both are app-private and both survive
@@ -53,16 +94,6 @@ fn android_main(app: slint::android::AndroidApp) {
         dr_plat::set_state_dir(dir);
     }
 
-    // `AndroidLogger` rather than `init_once`, so logcat can be *teed* rather
-    // than replaced: `init_once` installs itself as the global logger and
-    // there is only one of those. Everything that reached logcat before this
-    // change still reaches it, at the same level and under the same tag; the
-    // file is strictly additional.
-    let console = android_logger::AndroidLogger::new(
-        android_logger::Config::default()
-            .with_max_level(log::LevelFilter::Info)
-            .with_tag("DarkRoom"),
-    );
     let logging = dr_plat::diagnostics::install(Box::new(console), log::LevelFilter::Info);
 
     // Panics go to stderr, and Android discards stderr. Without this hook a