Read today about an interesting bug in OpenOffice. The problem was that some people occasionally couldn’t print. Later, someone noticed that his wife complained she couldn’t print on Tuesdays!
While studying the bug report, people initially claimed it must be an OpenOffice bug, since all other applications printed fine. Others noted that the problem would come and go. One user found a solution: uninstall OpenOffice, completely clear it from the system, and reinstall it (which is easy on Ubuntu). He reported on Thursday that this had solved his printing issue.
Two weeks later, he reported (on a Tuesday) that his solution didn’t work. Almost four months later, one guy’s wife complained that OpenOffice does not print on Tuesdays. I can imagine this situation:
Wife: Steve, the printer doesn’t work on Tuesdays.
Steve: It’s the printer’s day off — of course, it won’t print on Tuesdays.
Wife: No, I’m serious! I can’t print from OpenOffice on Tuesdays.
Steve: (Skeptically) Alright… Show me.
Wife: I can’t show you.
Steve: (Rolling his eyes) Why?
Wife: It’s Wednesday!
Steve: (Nods. Slowly says…) I see.
The problem was related to a program named “file”, specifically, that the OpenOffice developers decided to use it to determine file types, and the developers of file had not perfectly debugged their tool. This utility uses templates to determine file types based on their content. For instance, if a file starts with ‘%!’ followed by ‘PS-Adobe-‘, then it’s a PostScript file. File has rules that dictate which markers to use to identify each type. A mistake in the pattern for the Erlang JAM file meant that ‘Tue’ in a PostScript file was recognized as an Erlang JAM file. OpenOffice didn’t get what it needed from file, and didn’t work. Only on Tuesdays (Tue).
By the way, this is a great example of a bug known in English as a Heisenbug 😉
By the way, there’s also a funny story about “email not going beyond 500 miles,” but how true it is—I can’t say.
Incidentally, this is my post from 21 years ago
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 