6 ms·

One of my favorite mysterious test failure is from BeOS folklore: http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/benewsletter/Issue4-22.html http://www.haiku-os.org/legac

One of my favorite mysterious test failure is from BeOS folklore: http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/benewsletter/Issue4-22.html http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/benewsletter/Issue4-22.h... A Testing Fairy Tale Two test engineers were in a crunch. The floppy drive they were currently testing would work all day while they ran a variety of stress tests, but the exact same tests would run for only eight hours at night. After a few days of double-checking the hardware, the testing procedure, and the recording devices, they decided to stay the night and watch what happened. For eight hours they stared at the floppy drive and drank espresso. The long dark night slowly turned into day and the sun shone in the window. The angled sunlight triggered the write-protection mechanism, which caused a write failure. A new casing was designed and the problem was solved. Who knew?

wkonkel 12y ago
I heard a similar story in the past but with the culprit being a janitor turning on their vacuum every morning at 6am causing power spikes.
- kibibu 12y ago
  We had a tech support customer who called every few Mondays at 9am because their keyboard wasn't working. The cleaner's vacuum cleaner would occasionally pull out the PS2 cord.
  - dghf 12y ago
    After the first call (or at latest the second), did they not learn to plug it back in themselves?
    - kibibu 12y ago
      I wish I still had your high estimation of tech support customers.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  I recall one where the cleaning crew would unplug a rack because the socket was right inside the door (and yes, they had keys).
- MikeTV 12y ago
  I have a relative who loves to tell the story of a school building's clocks that would show the wrong time every Monday morning. Turned out their janitor's new vacuum cleaner was putting interference on the power line and disrupting the master clock system's signal enough to require a manual reset. Problem went away after replacing the vacuum.

wkonkel 12y ago

I heard a similar story in the past but with the culprit being a janitor turning on their vacuum every morning at 6am causing power spikes.

kibibu 12y ago
We had a tech support customer who called every few Mondays at 9am because their keyboard wasn't working. The cleaner's vacuum cleaner would occasionally pull out the PS2 cord.
- dghf 12y ago
  After the first call (or at latest the second), did they not learn to plug it back in themselves?
  - kibibu 12y ago
    I wish I still had your high estimation of tech support customers.
digi_owl 12y ago
I recall one where the cleaning crew would unplug a rack because the socket was right inside the door (and yes, they had keys).
MikeTV 12y ago
I have a relative who loves to tell the story of a school building's clocks that would show the wrong time every Monday morning. Turned out their janitor's new vacuum cleaner was putting interference on the power line and disrupting the master clock system's signal enough to require a manual reset. Problem went away after replacing the vacuum.