Had a client do this to me once. They uploaded a screen grab of an error page from a different system into the CMS we made them, and then reported it as a bug.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Years ago I was studying webdev and couldn't make a js code to work. After weeks fighting against it I decided to install another browser and it worked there instantly, but in my regular browser still refuse to work. After a couple of more hours trying ro see why in one browser worked and nor the other found that I had the js blocker active all the time along.
I had this happen to me (except I don't study web dev, I was just making a CV web)
Yeah that's how it goes.
Just earlier today I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying figure out an issue where the classic "debug print" didn't give the correct value. And as is often the case, I had forgot to change print to the new test variable.
Today I spent multiple hours trying to debug a timezone issue in a codebase. The timezone I was testing with was Etc/GMT+4, which I had assumed was four hours ahead of GMT. Turns out, it’s actually 4 hours behind GMT 🤦♂️
GMT+4 would add 4 hours to Greenwich Mean Time though? That's GET (Georgia Standard Time), so 10am (1000) GMT would be 2pm (1400) GET.
GMT-4 would be EDT (Eastern Daylight Time), so that 10am (1000) GMT would be 6am (0600) EDT. Also, Georgia the state is in that time zone funny enough haha
(For the most part. Timezones are really really complicated and you should probably just look up the offset for the specific city/region you want Everytime and use some other package for time stuff lol)
Yeah, you would've thought it would work that way. Regrettably, the standard timezone code of Etc/GMT+4 is actually GMT-4. Wikipedia
The special area of "Etc" is used for some administrative zones, particularly for "Etc/UTC" which represents Coordinated Universal Time. In order to conform with the POSIX style, those zone names beginning with "Etc/GMT" have their sign reversed from the standard ISO 8601 convention. In the "Etc" area, zones west of GMT have a positive sign and those east have a negative sign in their name (e.g "Etc/GMT-14" is 14 hours ahead of GMT).
According to NIST, Eastern Time is UTC-4. And currently it is 5:04pm EDT, and in London (a city in GMT/UTC+0) it is 10:04pm. Which is 5 hours ahead (because America is dumb and has daylight savings).
Which is also backed up by your article. Americas/Indianapolis is the one I normally use since I'm in Indiana.
Then the UK's equally dumb: it was 10:04 pm BST (GMT+1) cos daylight savings is a thing in most of Europe too. At least it's synchronised across Europe^[The EU is planning on killing daylight savings but I have no idea if the UK will do the sensible thing and go along when/if this happens] so you just need to remember that most^[thanks for making it more confusing, Mexico] of North America changes a few weeks earlier.
Also, the UK says GMT/BST which is nice and clear - calling both EST and EDT "Eastern Time" makes even more of a mess!
And yes, I've just rediscovered you can use footnotes, why do you ask?
A colleague is currently checking why the testing environment was uploading files to the production environment. A number of employees' photos now show Goku
Your bug sounds pretty strong, can I fight it?
I can absolutely guarantee that you are not the only person to have spent quality time getting to know the intimate backwaters of a codebase tracking down a bug that you introduced whilst tracking down a bug.
Source: I've been writing software for over 40 years.
I call that Tuesday.
I’m sorry, but today is Monday…
Not here it's not!
Damn, that is like the worst day there is.
Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it. Yesterday I was trying to debug my reverse proxy setup for a new app and why it wouldn't work.
Well, if you configure it to route shinyNewApp.example.com to your app, but then always access sihnyNewApp.example.com with your browser...
I was reading Crafting Interpreters. After adding function calls and stack frames, i tested my implementation with the Fibonacci script at the end of the chapter
I spent about 2 hours debugging my call stack, and even tested the script in Python
Only to realize that Fib(3) is indeed 2
Oh, I love this one, it's very silly. I find it oddly grounding when I discover that the cause of a problem was me being silly, because I'm already aware that I am prone to foolish errors (as all humans are); when I discover that an unfathomable computer error is actually my fault, it feels like everything is right with the world
Great book btw
That happens so often that checking for spelling is the first thing I do now when something goes wrong.
Yep, or go proofread some JSON…
Or check formatting in yaml
Fucking yaml...
I'm ashamed to admit how many times a basic english spell checker in my IDE has saved my bacon.
I just have a spell checker enabled in vscode
So helpful for dynamic languages that can't detect undeclared variables (looking at you JS)
Yeah, spell checker is the winning move here.
Been there. Blamed the DNS, but turns out that I didn't know how to type customername.tld
We have an app that drivers use to file paperwork and stuff like that. We are going to start requiring them to do a vehicle inspection before each load (not CDL, so it's not required), and so I built a little form for them to use.
If there is no issue, it just saves their report to a database so we can keep record. But if there is an issue it's supposed to generate a report and send it off to the maintenance department.
While I was working on the formatting for the email, it just stopped working! I was trying to troubleshoot my code thinking I broke the SMTP send part, reading my HTML formatted email thinking I missed some syntax, working with the SMTP relay provider we are using. Nothing. Everything looked perfect. There were no errors. Reports were properly saving to the database. Just no emails.
I was forgetting to click the checkbox to mark that I had an issue 🤦♂️
Anyways, now you can't actually list issues or until you check that box haha
Why do you need the checkbox then? Can't you make soit that when they list issues, the mail will be sent?
Because they fill out the report regardless if there is an issue or not. Also, it was a requirement I was given.
I think it was to give the divers a more simplified form to fill out. Drivers tend to skew a little left on the bell curve so giving them a ton of stuff all at once means they just won't do it at all
Edit: Here's a longer explanation of what the form looks like:
- Name: [text box]
- Truck Number: [text box]
- Are there issues [Boolean toggle]
- Comments [text box]
- Signature
Then if they toggle the "issues" checkbox, it expands to
- What issues: [multi select list]
- Description: [text box]
- Pictures: [photo upload]
I'm in that picture and I don't like it.
Sometimes you spend hours looking for an error you just can't find only to realize you're looking at the wrong file. Or the right file on the wrong server.
I had something almost identical to this happen to me on Friday. Last year our company moved to a super locked down version of Teams, to the point where I couldn't even open images that people put in the chat because of security issues, instead the image they posted would be replaced with an error image saying that I wasn't allowed to open images, blah blah blah. That problem was resolved a long time ago though.
On Friday I was trying to send an image of some data processing to a colleague, and every time I put it in Teams, it would show up as that stupid error message. I spent a solid hour trying to figure out why that problem was back, was my computer not authenticating with MS properly, etc. Turns out my file browser was sorting by time order instead of reverse time order, and the screenshot at the top of the list from May 2 2024, was a screenshot of the error message that I used to send to IT when they were investigating the problem.
Jiminy Cricket, imagine not being able to tell the difference between an error code and an image of an error code, and imagine subsequently, for some reason, not immediately inspecting the HTTP request and response. Sounds like a very real #programming #devops problem.
Sometimes you lose the forest for the trees
Sometimes you forget to verify if your assumptions are true