What could these white dots on my negatives be?

this is my first time using finol as a developer and I've noticed these black dots all around my film even on unexposed squares (visible thanks to the discoloration of this being a staining developer) my current theories are:
1. air bubbles due to inversions as this solution seems more prone to it than others I've previously used
2. a side effect of me leaving my film to soak for an hour thanks to me having to remake my developer multiple times due to faulty instructions telling me that the solution should turn clear after 10 minutes of constant stirring meanwhile it turned blood red all 3 times i tried it.
attached below are the inverted scans of the negatives

looks like light but then there is drag in the spots like a hot particle deposit, could there be like concentrated development particles?

Saganich said:

looks like light causing those spots.

Click to expand...

light would cause the spots to be white when inverted instead of black

oops yea, its Friday night…maybe heavy ions embedded in emulsion then.

Could be dust.

Doesn't dust on a negative invert to white?

The post is a little bit disorienting because the title says "white dots" then the examples show us black dots. ;-)

Maybe we should see the negatives on a light table.

I think your first theory is more likely -- that is, air bubbles preventing development.

They do look like bubbles/air bells. You are getting less development in those spots. They are rather small for bubbles, though.

@oniongal what film is this?
My first thought would indeed be air bubbles.
Leaving a film in the soak for an hour isn't great; I understand what happened though. There's not all that much you could have done.
It's funny because I tried Finol years ago and used it for a while, and it never, ever went red upon mixing AFAIK. Chemically, Finol is similar to Pyrocat, so when I ran out, I switched to DIY mixing Pyrocat instead. But the Finol worked fine for me.
Maybe the Finol kit you received had been sitting on a shelf for a bit too long? I've had that happen with Moersch chemistry once or twice. It's stock that moves slow for many retailers, so you sometimes end up with old material. This shouldn't be the case if you order directly from Moersch, I'd expect.

oniongal said:

black dots all around my film even on unexposed squares

Click to expand...

To be sure, should I interpret this as follows: you see a colored (yellow/tan I assume) base stain all over the film, except in the areas that show up as black spots on the posted images? In that case it's a good indication that you were indeed running into an issue with air bells. An alternative explanation could be contamination of the film with little spots of something hydrophobic that repelled the developer.
Can you post some clear photos of the affected areas of a few negatives, preferably also parts of these unexposed areas that you also see visibly affected?