--max-restarts ignored by CLI

What's going wrong?

I started a script with this exact command:

pm2 start ./start.js --name flickr2google --restart-delay 10000 --max-restarts 10

And later, the pm2 list command indicated me that the script restarted 121 times...

┌────────────────┬────┬─────────┬──────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬─────────┬──────────┐
│ App name       │ id │ version │ mode │ pid   │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem       │ user    │ watching │
├────────────────┼────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ flickr2google  │ 8  │ 1.0.0   │ fork │ 29506 │ online │ 121     │ 5m     │ 0%  │ 77.5 MB   │ antoine │ disabled │

How could we reproduce this issue?

Create a script that stops after a few milliseconds and start it with the --max-restarts option.

Supporting information

$ pm2 report

--- PM2 report ----------------------------------------------------------------
Date                 : Sat Sep 28 2019 12:31:58 GMT+0200 (GMT+02:00)
===============================================================================
--- Daemon -------------------------------------------------
pm2d version         : 3.5.1
node version         : 10.16.3
node path            : /home/antoine/.npm-global/bin/pm2
argv                 : /usr/local/bin/node,/home/antoine/.npm-global/lib/node_modules/pm2/lib/Daemon.js
argv0                : node
user                 : antoine
uid                  : 1000
gid                  : 1000
uptime               : 48709min
===============================================================================
--- CLI ----------------------------------------------------
local pm2            : 3.5.1
node version         : 10.16.3
node path            : /home/antoine/.npm-global/bin/pm2
argv                 : /usr/local/bin/node,/home/antoine/.npm-global/bin/pm2,report
argv0                : node
user                 : antoine
uid                  : 1000
gid                  : 1000
===============================================================================
--- System info --------------------------------------------
arch                 : x64
platform             : linux
type                 : Linux
cpus                 : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  C2350  @ 1.74GHz
cpus nb              : 2
freemem              : 217579520
totalmem             : 4119019520
home                 : /home/antoine
===============================================================================
--- PM2 list -----------------------------------------------
┌────────────────┬────┬─────────┬──────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬────────────┬─────────┬──────────┐
│ App name       │ id │ version │ mode │ pid   │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem        │ user    │ watching │
├────────────────┼────┼─────────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼────────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ flickr2google  │ 8  │ 1.0.0   │ fork │ 29506 │ online │ 121     │ 10m    │ 0%  │ 80.4 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
│ form-to-ses    │ 3  │ 1.0.0   │ fork │ 4898  │ online │ 1       │ 33D    │ 0%  │ 53.9 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
│ labrewlangerie │ 7  │ 1.0.0   │ fork │ 4778  │ online │ 2       │ 15D    │ 0%  │ 76.2 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
│ lapagaiedaure  │ 4  │ 1.0.0   │ fork │ 4995  │ online │ 1       │ 33D    │ 0%  │ 59.0 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
│ supercoloc     │ 2  │ N/A     │ fork │ 16490 │ online │ 71      │ 6h     │ 0%  │ 51.5 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
│ tribeez        │ 0  │ N/A     │ fork │ 4718  │ online │ 1       │ 33D    │ 0%  │ 103.5 MB   │ antoine │ disabled │
│ tribeez-fcm    │ 1  │ N/A     │ fork │ 5260  │ online │ 1       │ 33D    │ 0%  │ 66.8 MB    │ antoine │ disabled │
└────────────────┴────┴─────────┴──────┴───────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴────────────┴─────────┴──────────┘
===============================================================================
--- Daemon logs --------------------------------------------
/home/antoine/.pm2/pm2.log last 20 lines:
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:00: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:00: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:06: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:16: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:16: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:25: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:35: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:36: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:42: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:52: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:56:52: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:57:03: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:57:13: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T08:57:13: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T09:00:14: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T09:00:24: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T09:00:24: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online
PM2        | 2019-09-28T12:20:52: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] exited with code [1] via signal [SIGINT]
PM2        | 2019-09-28T12:21:02: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] starting in -fork mode-
PM2        | 2019-09-28T12:21:02: PM2 log: App [flickr2google:8] online

Reproduce the issue with a Node.js script that exits after a few milliseconds, using the shown pm2 start command and --max-restarts option. Compare the restart count in pm2 list with the configured limit, and use pm2 report and the daemon logs to trace the option through the CLI; done means restarts stop at the configured maximum.