Ridiculous Software Bug Workarounds? 655
theodp writes "Ever get a workaround for a bug from a vendor that's so rigoddamndiculous that there has to be a clueless MBA or an ornery developer behind it? For example, Microsoft once instructed users to wiggle their mouse continuously for several minutes if they wanted to see their Oracle data make it into Excel (yes, it worked!). And more recently, frustrated HP customers were instructed to use non-HP printers as their default printer if they don't want Microsoft Office 2007 to crash (was this demoed in The Mojave Experiment?). Any other candidates for the Lame Workaround Hall of Fame?"
Run Windoze much?? (Score:5, Insightful)
HP and Microsoft repeatedly suggest re-installing the operating system to cure a network configuration issue.
Re:Run Linux much? (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I've had people tell me to reinstall the new Linux(here, uBuntu) updated set instead of updating it.
Maybe I'm a bad luck magnet, but last time I tried to update it pulverized X.
With apologies to Staples:
"That Was Fun!"
Re:Run Linux much? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe I'm a bad luck magnet, but last time I tried to update it pulverized X.
Hence the recommendation to reinstall.
Linux isn't really designed to handle big updates. Small and frequent, yes, but don't even think about lagging more than 3 versions behind on any given package. Before you flame me, I've had this experience on many different distros over the last five years, and GoboLinux was just about the only one shielded from the breakage by cleanly separating versions, and keeping the old one.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's better to just reinstall, but it's not something that is technically required. I personally reinstall just so that I don't have to worry about inconsistencies popping up latter because I changed a few settings.
Well, that and the fact that an upgrade is a good time to dispose of software that's just sitting there, and a lot less work than trying to track down unused dependencies after you remove said programs.
Re:Run Linux much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, 9.04 was crap and everybody knows it. At least on the Intel driver front, and that's just for starters.
They said that about 8.10, and 8.04.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Often users are advised to just backup their home directory and do a clean format (I like Ubuntu, don't get me wrong, but let's call a spade a spade here: This is a problem which many linux developers and ubuntu community members seem to gloss over, from what I've seen).
It's typically simpler to have /home on a separate partition for workstations.
Then you can install whatever system you want.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't plug in your scanner! (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft recommends increasing your system stability by leaving your scanners not plugged in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzFUcDKC64E [youtube.com]
Re:Don't plug in your scanner! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it makes sense, in a Microsoft sort of way. In the effort to make its WYSIWYG editors as WYSIWYG as possible, it offloads some rendering to printer drivers so as to mimic the printed copy as closely as possible. XPS has no rendering standard so it uses sane (but not good) defaults.
Of course they've never heard of PostScript. This kind of brain-damage is just a tiny part of the failure that is Microsoft WYSIWYG and typesetting "technology".
With a proper typesetter like LaTeX you get a PDF that's a dot-for-dot match with what you'd get in a calibrated printer, without ever having to assume any particular printer. It's the printer's responsibility to implement PostScript properly, not the typesetter's responsibility to tune its PostScript to the printer!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I remember back in the Windows days, there were various stability and malware problems that could only be fixed by installing Linux, *BSD or some other high-quality OS. Ridiculous, I know, but true nonetheless. As a bonus though, the TCO was significantly reduced, so basically it was a win-win situation.
Re:Run Windoze much?? (Score:5, Informative)
OMG. This problem is old ... I do not know how old it. It was so many years ago.
With some NICs under Win9x one had to do some hand waving to make it working. And two reboots. (Good NICs with good OEM drivers (e.g. Intel) had no the problem - setup.exe did it all for you. But e.g. RealTek was shipping only drivers, without any fancy installation program.) I already forgot what to do precisely, but yes, it was caused by Win9x not installing something during setup since network wasn't present (but some dummy stuff was installed instead). The installation of missing pieces could be triggered artificially later - with minimum two reboots - but how and what were the step I already forgot. Haven't seen Win9x for 10+ years now....
I still remember though the impression of people when I did extra redundant reboot and Win9x network was magically coming to life. (*) (*) Not always, as Win9x's DHCP/WINS was atrocious and sometimes also causing the effect as if network was down.
rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:4, Insightful)
urban dictionary = idiots making up words.
At 27 years old I am now an old fart.
Re:rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:5, Informative)
John Wayne made it up:
http://www.celebrityrants.com/premium/celeb_wayne.html
Re:rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:5, Funny)
[...] self documenting and shouldn't have a definition [...] fan-fucking-tastic for example.
I understand what 'fan-fucking' means and 'tastic' is probably related to 'elastic' in some way, but the sexual perversities they invent these days...
Re:rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:5, Funny)
Point taken.
I will say that self documenting words (just like self documenting code) require a minimum intelligence level. I'm wondering what percentile of the US population you represented to get the "fan fucking" + "elastic" conclusion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I will say that self documenting words (just like self documenting code) require a minimum intelligence level.
And perspective, context. "Search that man" means something different when uttered by a customs official, somebody playing hide and seek or a police officer.
My hard-learned experience is that in natural language we need a reasonable amount of redundant information in order to capture the intended meaning.
I'm wondering what percentile of the US population you represented to get the "fan fucking" + "elastic" conclusion.
I'm sorry, I live completely outside that IQ-Gauss curve - hint: non-US
Re:rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't understand how people associate the word "fuck" so exclusively with sexual meaning. It seems to be a more prevalent attitude in America, affecting even supreme court justices.
Such a conclusion is a pretty unfair typecasting of such a versatile swearword. While "fucking" or "to fuck" is often used to describe sexual intercourse, the word has a great many other meanings. "Fuck off" being the most classic and familiar example, used to gruffly tell someone to remove themselves, or to desist from an action, etc, but perhaps only to express disbelief or some such. "What the fuck" shows the ability to use the word in an undirected fashion. Alone, "Fuck" can be an effective emotional outlet. "Fuckers" turns the verb into a noun, that is, if it were ever a verb in the first place. Things like "fan-fucking-tastic" show just how versatile this unique utterance can be, as it transcends classical descriptions.
So, "Fuck" is not just a sexual swearword. Perhaps, lacking any other terms, American's take it to primarily refer to intercourse. In fact, other english speakers have many other words at their disposal for describing sexual activities. "Shag","ride", etc. Lack of such words in someones personal or cultural lexicon should not be used to imbue unwarranted meaning to a speakers words in some kind of reverse irony.
When Bono said "fucking brilliant" at the Golden Globes, it was clear to any reasonable person that he meant the word as an adjective to brilliant, not as a sexual reference. This is doubly clear to anyone from Ireland. Nevertheless the FCC claimed that the word had and "inherently has a sexual connotation", in any context. And worse, the US supreme court agreed with them.
As someone who has been told on countless occasions by friends, family and countrymen to "Fuck off", or some such like, I'm personally offended far more by the suggestion that all these people's comments had an underlying sexual meaning than I am by any of the expletives themselves. But once again I find my culture, my traditions, my airwaves, and my internets subjected to the interpretations and censorship of conservative bible bashers in rural America. It's fairly insulting.
So please accept my sincerity when I say that you, and all those that would corral honest swearwords into narrow definitions, respectfully, Can All Fuck off with Yourselves!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When Bono said "fucking brilliant" at the Golden Globes, it was clear to any reasonable person that he meant the word as an adjective to brilliant, not as a sexual reference.
Maybe he just likes to watch fireflies do it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, Fuck the fucking fuckers! When you think about it it's not a bad thing, Get Fucked slashdot readers, I hope you all get fucked, tonight!!!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is self documenting and shouldn't have a definition for the same reason we don't write up definitions for every word with 'fuck' inserted. fan-fucking-tastic for example.
Bad example. "Fan-fucking-tastic" is a well-documented and carefully studied term. Numerous articles and at least one book have touched upon this little gem. I highly recommend McCawley's "The Fucking Infix" for a start if you're interested in the aca-fucking-demic study of this sort of thing.
Re:rigoddamndiculous ? (Score:5, Funny)
urban dictionary = idiots making up words.
At 27 years old I am now an old fart.
UUuuh hello??! Rigoddamndiculous is a perfectly cromulent word!
contrafibularities ? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry, sir. I'm anuspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious to have
caused you such pericombobulations
RE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RE (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
Re:RE (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be a +1, Sad But True.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Biggest work around? I'd say having to use windows to do my job.
Fortunately I don't have to use Windows for my job, but I do like playing games at home. Games that have only been written for Windows.
My options for work-arounds are:
All of these workarounds are cumbersome and stupid, and none of them are particularly appealing.
Profiling? (Score:5, Informative)
A profiler was crashing when I tried to find bottlenecks in my code. The support rep. told me I should turn off optimization.
Profiling /= Debugging (Score:5, Insightful)
Profiling has to be done with same flags enabled as for the production code. Otherwise the result will be meaningless.
Re:Profiling /= Debugging (Score:5, Funny)
"Then don't optimize your production code."
Ticket closed.
Re:Profiling /= Debugging (Score:4, Informative)
"like using EBP for computations instead of its normal use (or is it ESP? I forget)"
EBP is correct. For anyone interested: normally the [extended] base pointer points to the top of your stack frame I think where you will find your return address (address of where you were CALLed from, or IRETurn if you were called by an INTerrupt). You can then use fixed offsets from EBP to access function parameters, which are pushed onto the stack before the CALL. Local variables go onto the stack after that, so with each local variable used, the [extended] Stack Pointer moves further (down in the case of x86). This way, you know that you just need to move the stack pointer back to the base pointer in order to return.
Of course this isn't needed if you have a compiler that keeps track of local variables placed onto the stack and knows at any point the different between what EBP and ESP should be. In this case, you can use ESP-VariableOffset instead of EBP+/-FixedOffset to access variables on the stack, which frees up EBP for you to use as a generic register for use, and saves you wrapping your functions in commands to manipulate EBP (in GCC you pass the -fomit-frame-pointer argument to enable this, but this destroys debugging, as the knowledge of what's-on-the-stack that the compiler uses to calculate the offsets aren't stored in the binary)
Don't have the details (Score:5, Interesting)
but it was back in the days of Windows 95. I was working in software Localisation for a Lotus Notes product. We had several machines working in the test lab based on ghost images, so they were all pretty much identical.
One of the machines kept dying on us during the test phase, but none of the others did. Very confusing, for about a day. Until we realised that the machine which was crashing had an audio CD in the drive. (Not playing, not in Explorer. Just present in the drive.)
We verified it by swapping the audio cd into other machines, and running the same tests. Invariably, the machine with the CD in, crashed when we tried to perform task "x" in Lotus Notes.
It was escalated up, as I recall. And we eventually got a note back saying "Don't put CD's in the CD-Rom drives."
I still remember it (as a recent graduate) as my first exposure to management-style thinking.
Re:Don't have the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't have the details (Score:5, Informative)
Depending on what else they did, that might be a good response. A proper IT service desk should do two things in a situation like this:
1. It should find a quick workaround for the incident at hand, which is to recomend all customers to not put an audio CD in the drive of a server running notes.
2. The should perform root cause analysis to determine the underlying problem and remove it permanently.
If the Service desk isn't doing both these things, it's not doing its job properly.
Re:Don't have the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't have the details (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you can't sell bug fixes, only new features!!!
Re:Don't have the details (Score:4, Funny)
Really? Guess you never heard of Windows 98 Second Edition.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't have the details (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently filed a bug about a certain popular grid control's mouse wheel behavior. The company making the control responded that it was not a bug because "Microsoft's [ancient] grid control has the same behavior." Gee thanks, dorks. Good thing you set your standards so high.
Re:Don't have the details (Score:4, Interesting)
That's probably about the worst example you could have picked - it's easy enough to SSH into the box and kill X.
Shame, really, because most of the other drivers actually live in kernel space so it's quite possible for a poor sound driver to cause the machine to kernel panic and genuinely crash.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's still management style thinking.
Whether it's being fixed by the localization team or not, the problem still should be fixed before the software goes out the door.
Internal testing of known bugs is a lot better and cheaper than putting out the product, and fixing bugs after the fact.
The developers should have been connected with the localization team, so that the bug could be fixed, as localization was still being worked on.
Even if the ball was started rolling by just pulling one person from the loca
Stupid MS Office 2007 bug (Score:5, Interesting)
Double click on a document. Word sits there for what seems like hours saying something like "Connecting to default printer. Press ESC to stop" so you give up and press ESC and start editing the document. Word promptly crashes. The workaround - set the default printer to Microsoft XPS and select the printer manually when you need it and wait the eternity it takes to communicate with the network printer. And sometimes it crashes again. WTF?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're lucky you use sqrt(2) sized paper (Score:5, Interesting)
I had an older version of Word and I wanted to make an A3 document - but my printer only supported A4.
You're lucky in that you appear to live in a locale that uses ISO 216 (A-series) paper sizes. ISO paper, unlike the U.S. letter series, has a nice mathematical definition: all sizes are the same aspect ratio of sqrt(2):1, and each size has twice the area and sqrt(2) times the length and width of the size below it. So make your document on A4 and print it on A3 at 141%.
Re:Stupid MS Office 2007 bug (Score:5, Interesting)
WinXP has issues connecting to Win98 SMB printers via TCP or NetBEUI when connected to a DOS6 network running LANtastic. It would take about 15 minutes to find the printer and about 10 minutes to send a small document. There was no problem browsing the network, though.
LANtastic had some suggested workarounds (changes to how broadcast packets are routed by LANtastic nodes and changes to the TCP and SMB configs in Win98, mostly involving registry hacks), but it turns out the only reliable workaround I found was to install an lpd emulator on Win98 that connected locally to the printer, and then have WinXP connected to lpd. It worked quite reliably and was quicker at connecting than I'd ever seen an SMB printer be. That wasn't an official workaround, though, just something I tried on a hunch.
I remember in the early days of libtool... depending on what version of automake tools were included in a package, what version of the automake tools you had elsewhere on your system, your version of libc, the version of bash you used, the versions of make and gcc you had installed, and the veerssion of text-utils and sh-utils you had, sometimes libtool would generate very long command strings with hundreds of redundant arguments, and then call itself to "simplify" the arguments but actually recurse with an even longer string, until bash segfaulted and your login session crashed.
There was never really a workaround for ttha... just "try different veersison of thinggs, you might needto downgrade automake, or mix and match different veersison of auttoocnf, automake, and libtool." Quite wonderful, I tell you.
gcc2.7.2.3 (the really stable version you had to compile the linux kernel with for quite some time) had some weird bug that didn't really have an official workaround, either. Somehow if you did pointer calculations on the function argument list (like varargs or stdarg) andn the called another function, the last local variable of the called function couldn't be written until it was read. I remember having to do something like printf("", a); before a statement like a=4; would work. Of course, then you'd get a warning about using an uninitialized variable, but... The funny thing was, I seem to recall that only would happen when optimizations were turned *off*. Turning them on made the bug go away, which made it really frustrating to track down. It ended up being something like gcc subtracting the wrong multiple of 4 from the stack pointer (under all the aforementioned conditions) in the block of asm that set up the stack frame. Of course, gcc2.81 and 2.95.2 had their own issues, and egcs wasn't much better... It wasn't until gcc3.2 where I didn't need multiple versions of gcc (one for the kernel, one for the program I was working on, and one that compiled c++ code correctly!!)
I remember MatlabR11 having broken CSV-file-parsing routines. The workaround? Write your own. The Matlab compiler was also moving to a new system (MEX), but there were lots of things that didn't work yet, and the previous compiler system was officially deprecated. Then, the next release of Matlab required 92MiB of DLLs to be installed as a Matlab runtime if you wanted to distribute anything you compiled with the Matlab compiler... and much of that runtime was broken Java libraries. A lot of the official suggestions for working with structured data that involved strings required many layers of nested cell objects, which had their own compilation issues. Again, the workaround was to convert string tables into padded numeric matrices of UInts. Of course, most of the matrix manipulation functions only worked with Real numbers, so you had to convert back and forth, and be careful about what type of rounding/flooring/ceilinging you were doing...
VB6 had a broken val() that returned the wrong values for ASCII characters in the range 160 through 184 (I think),, butthere wasn't realalyy n conssitent pattern. MSDN and the Microsoft KB gavee th official workaround: write your own val().
Early versions of t
Good heavens! (Score:3, Interesting)
So what, in the end, did the one person to ever have this problem do about it? Sorry! Couldn't help myself.
wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, a few GNU encryption programs do the same thing while collecting entropy, and yell at you if you don't wiggle enough.
Feature. Not a bug.
Do you have any idea how hard random data is to collect?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If it interferes with normal use, it's a bug. Most users simply _do not care_ about having high quality randomness sources for their keys.
The lack of good quality randomness _is_ a longstanding problem. Frankly, I wish tha tthe "Trusted Computing Platform" circuitry and development had been thrown out much sooner, and the circuitry instead invested in a thermal diode to provide truly random encryption keys.
Re:wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:4, Informative)
Quite easy, actually. Creating it with a standard computer is the hard part.
My solution is most of the time pinging some computers around the globe and using the times as salt. They are fairly random, actually.
Randomness at 96 kbps from an ADC (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have any idea how hard random data is to collect?
If your PC has a sound card, an entropy gathering service can hash the microphone input and derive at least 1 high-quality random bit per sample from ADC dither noise alone. So that's 96 kbps for a typical 48 kHz stereo ADC.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously we need an entropy generation program that feeds it the input from simulated mouse waggling. We can use /dev/urandom as the input! Of course, we have to take care to make it more randomer [thedailywtf.com].
Don't do that. The extra entropy will feed right back into /dev/urandom before you know it you will have this perpetual entropy generator massively increasing entropy in the universe then it will all be over.
Re:wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wiggle their mouse continuously (Score:5, Informative)
I think this actually had a good reason.
A nice old PS2 mouse generates interrupts when wiggled. This breaks up the boring routines. (Blocking routines actually.) And presto, a little more progress on transfering your data...
This phenomenon is not gone btw.
1. Start notepad in a window, not full screen.
2. Open long text file
3. Mark your text from beginning of document and try to scroll down. When mouse exits window, keep holding but with mouse stationary. Nothing happens?
4. Wiggle mouse outside window and presto it continoues to mark text towards the bottom of your document!!!
Fun and entertainment for the whole family!
Google Docs (Score:5, Interesting)
In March, the Google Docs team introduced the Drawings feature. Now you can create drawings, schematics etc. in your Google Docs document. Now when you want to print your doc, or export it to some other format than HTML, then you get a nice error message [google.com].
If you want to export or print, the workaround for the last three months has been... not to use drawings in your documents! Great feature!
Veterinary Clinic App (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yes:
We run a database-oriented app in a number of branches. It's so flaky that runtime errors are a daily occurrence.
The devs' response to reports of errors is usually:
a) Defrag the disk.
b) Stop the users typing so fast.
Seriously!
Re:Veterinary Clinic App (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Veterinary Clinic App (Score:5, Interesting)
b) Stop the users typing so fast.
Typing too fast caused people to die, in one case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 [wikipedia.org]
Specifically, go down to near the bottom of the entry where it mentions that: [t]he equipment control task did not properly synchronize with the operator interface task, so that race conditions occurred if the operator changed the setup too quickly. This was missed during testing, since it took some practice before operators were able to work quickly enough for the problem to occur.
Re:Veterinary Clinic App (Score:5, Interesting)
The Therac-25 incident also includes a great example of a ridiculous workaround for a serious (fatal!) software bug, the race condition triggered by this fast typing, or using an unexpected sequence of keys. The manufacturer's initial suggested fix was:
"Effective immediately, and until further notice, the key used for moving the cursor back through the prescription sequence (i.e., cursor "UP" inscribed with an upward pointing arrow) must not be used for editing or any other purpose.
To avoid accidental use of this key, the key cap must be removed and the switch contacts fixed in the open position with electrical tape or other insulating material. For assistance with the latter you should contact your local AECL service representative."
Quite rightly, the FDA concluded this was completely inadequate:
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_3.html [vt.edu]
Start here for the whole sorry story:
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html [vt.edu]
PHP's == operator (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mouse wiggling not that unusual, surprisingly (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost Zen. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd suggest trying the hates-software website at we.hates-software.com, but the software crapped out over a year ago and the guy running the site can't be arsed tracking down the no doubt obscure bug in Mariachi and fixing it. Since all of the users are too busy hating software they have to work with to fix software they're not actually responsible for, it's probably never going to get fixed, which is hateful but somehow satisfying, in a kind of Zen way.
Two-stage Pasting (Score:5, Funny)
I quite like the workaround that's always given for content management systems that can't strip out the humongous amount of invisible HTML cruft that comes with text that's copied to the clipboard from MS Word or Outlook.
Content editor: "Hey, why is the formatting of this page completely borked? And why can't I use the CMS's editor to fix the borkage?"
Me: "Where did you get the original text from?"
Content editor: "I copied it from a Word doc that somebody sent me. I just pasted that in. It was just plain text..."
Me: "I see. Well, delete the page and start again. This time, copy the stuff from Word, then open Notepad, past the text from Word into Notepad, then copy/paste into the CMS from there instead."
Content editor: "Oooh, voodoo!"
Me: "Indeed."
"I'm not making this up, you know." (Score:4, Interesting)
Gah.
There's one program I have to use that's got some awesomely evil rules for what HTML is allowed in pasted text. It also uses one of those hacks to let you edit HTML in a text box as rich text. Combining these two features means that whenever you edit text on anything but IE, even if you don't need to use the rich text feature, it won't accept the text because it contains a non-allowed tag.
What's the tag?
<body>
Paste formatted (Score:4, Insightful)
Argh, I hate this. Why is it that so many programs make copying the formatting when pasting the default? In my experience, it's almost never what I want. Now, granted, I'm a programmer, so I'm normally much more concerned with the content of the text than its appearance. But even when I am created a formatted document, 9 out of 10 times I want the pasted text to confirm to the formatting I'm already using, rather than creating an ugly mismatched clash of styles.
I'm not wholesale against copying formatting, but it shouldn't be the default option. Unfortunately, it's often much more difficult (e.g. 3-4 clicks deep through a menu option) or impossible (falling back to the aforementioned copy-through-notepad hack) to paste without styling.
Re:Two-stage Pasting (Score:4, Interesting)
My tips I wish all Outlook users would adopt.
1.Set your send format to Plain Text other rational humans will thank you. If you really need complex formatting you probably should be sending it as some sort of attachment, it must be data and I should be able to consume it with the application of my choice rather than fight with it in Outlook's message window.
2.Don't use word as your mail editor. Outlook is much much faster and more responsive with that off. Again if you need an editor as complex as word you are actually doing something that is not E-Mail.
3.This is optional but good for your own security, set the message display type to clear text. In exchange environments the server will do a pretty good job of converting anything sent your way without a plain text mime section to plain text. Its not perfect though YMMV.
MS-DOS 7.0 workaround (Score:5, Funny)
I remember when Microsoft put a crappy 32-bit front-end on MS-DOS 7.0 to make it more useful. It completely sucked. It hogged memory and crashed all the time. Luckily you could boot directly into DOS to avoid the GUI and get real work done.
Re:MS-DOS 7.0 workaround (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Not excactly a workaround (Score:5, Funny)
I used to have a network with windows NT 3.51 box and several 95 workstations.
Several times an hour I would see on the NT box a log error saying "An unexpected error has occurred on virtual circuit X."
NT 3.51 came with an online ref book you could use to look up things like that. When looking up the error code the page only said something like:
"If you expected this error ignore it."
Customer Service App (Score:5, Funny)
Just thought of another one:
Many years back I was working as a freelancer developing the training material for a customer service app.
The agents input customer details, the app identified the nearest call-out contractor, sent the contractor a text message, started the clock ticking and updated the log.
Unfortunately, the devs used their own GUI and in the top row the 'submit' button was right next to 'form clear' and call centre staff kept clicking the wrong button, erasing the customer details and having to ask for them all again. This did not go down well with customers who'd called due to a domestic emergency (plumbing etc.)
I suggested that the workflow through the form meant that the agents would be better served by a submit button at the bottom.
The response to my submission: "Can't see a need to move the button during this development cycle - agents to be told to stop clicking the wrong button."
Re:Customer Service App (Score:4, Funny)
Yeeeears ago, I worked in a callcenter where we had a typical homegrown CRM application for logging calls in.
This app had a function under the F6 key that allowed an agent to grab all his open cases from the server so he could work on them.
It also had a function under the F5 key that would grab all cases ever created, melting the server...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It also had a function under the F5 key that would grab all cases ever created, melting the server...
Why would you (in the general sense, not you specifically) code that? I mean, there had to be a better way to auto-kill the server.
not really a bug but (Score:5, Funny)
I'm currently doing this. (Score:3, Interesting)
The program Solaris Skunk Werks (A Battletech mech-maker program) currently has this annoying bug (or triggers an annoying bug in Java) that makes Drag and Drop functionality not only crash, but lock up X11, to the extent that I have to magic-Sysreq out if I forget and accidentally drag something.
What's worse is, the button for allocating items to slots stays grayed out if there's only one item. So, essentially, I have to either put two of everything on a Mech, or else reboot in Windows just to use a stupid roleplaying accessory.
Qqest GoldSuite Timeclock Software ... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, if you had purchased 15 licenses and were running 2 or more clocks (but less than the 15 you were supposedly allowed), you'd run out of licenses after a couple of days, even with light use.
After working for a month or so with the company to resolve the issue, what was their long term solution?
Give us a code that would give us "unlimited" (or somewhere in the area of 32,000 licenses).
After several years (like 8 or so) and much griping from me to switch to something else, we're still using the software, actually (but with only one swipe station, and only for our student workers in our biggest department), but will supposedly switch to something hosted and web based "soon".
The case of the 500-mile email (Score:5, Interesting)
Old Canon printers (Score:3, Interesting)
The worst workaround I got was a while back with old Canon inkjet printers. I think it was with the BJC-250.
Sometime the printer would got stuck and there was no way to make it print. The led would be orange and even unplugging it would not work.
We had a whole bunch of these and they were under warranty. When we called tech support. The told us this:
Please disconnect every wire from the printer. Take the printer over your head and balance it from left to right 4 times. Put back everything ant test.
And it worked every time we did that ! The printer unstuck and began to print again.
It was really a hardware bug because we could reproduce it on each of thoses printers !
The absolute worse: Adobe Photoshop (Score:4, Funny)
So, I gave my girlfriend a wacom tablet a few years back, and she notices they have a deal to get an half price upgrade from photoshop element to full photoshop CS4 by using her bundled serial number. That sounds like a good deal, photoshop CS4 for 300$...
So, go through the registration process, download photoshop from the site, it asks for the serial of the software we're upgrading from. Doesn't work. After going back and forth through support (who keep saying we don't qualify for the upgrade even though we do), they finally give us the "workaround".
You have to hit a bunch of keys at the same time to make a code pop on the screen, give the code to the support agent, who then give you another code, which you input in the "secret" box, which activates photoshop. And that will have to be done every damn time we reinstall even though we have a legitimate copy we purchased.. Oh yeah, great copy protection you have there, Mr. Adobe.
Makes me want to pirate the damn thing...
Ubisoft DRM fix (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple Mac only CD Rom (Score:5, Funny)
We labeled 3000 free handout CD roms "Apple Mac only" when we discovered that there was a windows virus on all of them. Clever huh?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So YOU are responsible for a friend literally tackling me when I tried to insert a Mac CD into my Windows machine because "Mac CDs kill Windows computers"?
Finally it makes sense!
Atari + tape recorder (Score:5, Interesting)
These weren't official ones. I developed them on my own.
The tape recorder was notoriously difficult to get the data to load right. Some tapes, saved on a different recorder, would require special tricks to get the readout "within specs".
One, I had to mute audio in the TV set to which the Atari was hooked up. I guess electromagnetic interference from the speaker was a problem. :)
On another, I'd have to hold the label with key functions on the recorder. The label was metal and connected to the recorder ground. By holding it, I was providing extra grounding that reduced the noise just enough to get the game to load. Luckily that one took only like 5 minutes to load
The best one was copied from a floppy. The copy was good, but there was no 'loader' program and the game was too big to fit with a copier to copy it to a different tape, and recorded from the beginning of the tape, no room to save the loader. The solution was to take a random different tape with a generic loader, start loading it, then after counting 6 "beeps" QUICKLY remove it and put the right tape in - the timeout tolerance was like 2-3s, so you really had to hurry.
Reboot Every 49.7 days (Score:3, Informative)
Windows 95 and 98 (and probably the first NT/2000 versions) had a famous bug, which was that the computer was unstable after 49.7 days.
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.9430.16 [joelonsoftware.com]
49.7 days corresponds to 2^32 milliseconds.
What was recommended was to reboot your computer more frequently, not very bad for uptime records.
Let's note that I still have similar bugs on my laptop, where IIS tends to be unresponsive when I put the computer in standby mode two or three days consecutively.
HIT your Sun workstation (Score:5, Interesting)
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, ok not really, but in the late 80s, Sun had a problem with some of their hard drives. When they would park they heads they would stick and you couldn't unpark them. Sun's solution was to tell you to HIT the computer. They even sent us a letter showing you where on the "pizza box" enclosure one would strike.
two second 'nop' (Score:5, Funny)
After upgrading a server, we watched a client verify the server through his daily application. The client entered data and clicked on submit, the next screen appeared instantly. "This is not possible" said the client "it takes about two seconds to submit data to the database"!
"But the new server is much faster!" we said. It didn't matter, the client refused to believe the data was really submitted.
We held a meeting about this 'problem'. One developer suggested to add a two second 'do nothing' loop to the submit button.
So we patched the server and asked the client to verify again. He entered data, clicked 'submit' and was very happy to have his two second delay back! "Now it works..." he said "...now the data is entering the database!".
We admitted our fault (knowing very well that all we added was a two second delay).
cheers
It's not a bug... (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to manage Digital UNIX (later called Tru64) systems for a large, now bankrupt, telecom back around the turn of the millennium. The filesystem used, AdvFS, was pretty cool and advanced for the time but under the version of the OS we were running we found that free space would shrink at a faster rate than used space would grow. I had filesystems report full even though a df would show only 60% used.
It turned out that when small files were deleted all of the space wouldn't become free. My customer wrote thousands upon thousands of 150-200 byte files a day and deleted just as many. The entire team and my customer agreed this was clearly a bug.
When brought up with Compaq (who had recently aquired Digital) the technical rep investigated and reported "this is not a bug, the code is being executed exactly how it's written." Seriously, this was his response. I would have been more amused if he seriously argued it was a "feature."
I never could get a definition of what a "bug" really was from him. I became rather infuriated when he reported to me that this issue was "fixed" in the latest major release of the OS. If there was no bug, why was it fixed?
I never got a straight answer and was left on my own to find my own work-around which involved inserting a new volume into the filesystem thus growing it and then deleting an old volume. When this was done to all volumes in the filesystem, the problem was resolved for a few more months. This was an incredibly labor intensive and, as far as I'm concerned, incredibly risky to move data around like that on a hot system with insane uptime requirements. There was also a massive performance hit while this was happening and my customer's application was already VERY IO intensive.
I'm still just as angry about that conversation with the rep today as I was back then.
I've JUST been seeing this on my MAC (Score:5, Interesting)
I really love my MAC, I've completely switched over after using PCs since early dos days.
Lately I've been trying to install parallels so I can run a few Windows games.
Parallels struggles for a while, then says that there are "unmovable files" and that I need to back up my hard disk and re-install OS-X!
After looking into it, The problem is that the mac drive is fragmented and the mac has no way to defragment some system files (the file in question appears to be the latest OS upgrade which seems to be kept inside it's original file).
So, I looked around for defragmenting programs, but nearly every reference is either Apple or Apple fanboys telling you that the mac doesn't need defragmenting.
Well, I guess it's true, the mac does NOT need defragmenting, just the occasional wipe and re-install!
I'm not really disagreeing with the concepts here--the OS does self-defragment to a degree, the file IS a system file and shouldn't be movable, etc. What I hate is the damn arrogance, every reply to a post on defragmenting was along the lines of "Man are you STUPID, MACs don't need defragmenting! That's so PC" (and yet apple itself recommending a re-install to force a defragment when it is needed).
Makes me hate this cult I appear to be a member of.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If they want the depression back, they can have it.
Re:Ok, (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with you we should kill them. Language, the English language anyway, is so widely used that correctness is usually defined as an use such that audience is not distracted from the intended message. That means there is lots of flexibility to get creative with spelling in certain situations. It may on occasion be acceptable or even appropriate to make up new words or use existing words in very unconventional fashion with alternate meanings implied. These things are all ok to do provided that you know your audience will pickup on it without extra effort on their part.
Due to all of the above its a simple fact there is going to be some symbol creep, from time to time new words will be created. Its also true others will fall into disuse although more gradually due to their appearance in print. I am no language snob that is insisting we should all run around talking and writing the way Jane Austin did 160 years ago or even Fitzgerald did eighty years ago. Its ok to make up some words with your pals because they share enough experience with you they will know them.
Here the poster has made a terrible choice and he proves he knows it by virtue of him having referenced it. I should not need a dictionary to read your mostly informal Slashdot post. That is not to say I never will but if I do it should have been something I would have reasonably been expected to know, and therefore could find in my own dictionary rather they Urban. Beyond that the word does not flow well at all. Its hard to speak and hard to read. It adds nothing in particular to the more accepted expression "that's God damn ridiculous" and offers us a savings of only a few syllables. If it actually better conveyed the authors emotional response, or helped to clarify which specific definition he or she wanted us to use it might have value. It does non of these things, its utter rubbish and should never be repeated.
This is how the language is destroyed rather than evolved.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Melodramatic much?
Honestly, expletives tend to be low-meaning and high-nonsense sections of language, and meaning there was perfectly clear, and would have been if he hadn't referenced it. Mildly annoying is the worst this is.
Now, that's not to say that the youngsters AREN'T destroying the English language. Heck, as a teacher, I SAW it. But "ri-goddamn-diculous" isn't a big deal.
Re:Ok, (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
John Wayne's not dead - he's frozen! And when we find a cure for cancer, we're gonna thaw out the Duke and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? You ever taken a cold shower? Well, multiply that by 15 million times. That's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be.
... and the proper attribution for this quote is : Denis Leary - No Cure For Cancer.
Re:HP Printers and Windows are a No Go (Score:5, Insightful)
speaking of HP printers, especially the networked ones, why is it that the network driver is 350 megs in size? I had to download two of those damn things, even after using a custom install option, to remove as much of the cruft as possible I still installed some 700 megs of drivers for two printers, and a scanner.
Guess what happens when the drivers get corrupted. you have to manually uninstall the registry settings and deleted all files manually in order to reinstall the drivers or they won't work.
HP decent printers, Software coded by monkey banging on keyboards.
Re:HP Printers and Windows are a No Go (Score:4, Informative)
Because they come with so much crap you don't need. I've had HP driver setup program completely fail to run before. Using 7zip (highly recommend) extracting the files from the .exe is easy, and allows you to use Windows own driver installation procedure (eg, from Add New Printer or from Device Manager etc) to point to just the directory where the driver .inf file is in, which will install a much smaller amount of stuff that's needed than the full .exe will. I find this gets around a load of driver installation problems. I generally do the same with all kinds of hardware (eg, display drivers). Also saves your systray getting totally cluttered with branding icons and increases bootup speed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well I agree HP makes nice printers, I just don't see how they make them so hard to install on the Windows platform. Usally you have use there automatic Printer driver installer which takes 2 hours to run, it tries to find the printer N times every time failing and then the 1 time it finds the printer is connected the install freezes.
I helped a guy with an HP printer and it seems they install crap to check the ink status and give you "helpful" messages about it. I recommend installing the drivers through the add printer interface, that way you avoid the extra bloatware.
Re:U3 "smart" flash drives (Score:4, Insightful)
Software problem: The autorun vulnerability in Windows only fails for CD drives.
Hardware solution: Make a flash drive with an extra partition that presents itself as a CD drive to the OS.
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Never engage in the Operating System war, it is the one thing next to first posts that will definitely get you modded down.