what do you do when you can't find the bug?

So what creative things do you do when you have unleashed all your fury unsuccessfully at finding a bug?

I go to the bathroom. I've solved many bugs because the solution unveiled itself when I was sitting on the toilet, not thinking about the problem.

TommyCarlier wrote:

I go to the bathroom. I've solved many bugs because the solution unveiled itself when I was sitting on the toilet, not thinking about the problem.

      "The Throne of Infinite Insight(tm)"



I usually get decent ideas on how to solve a problem when doing something else (showering/biking/etc.), but for actual bugs you just have to keep at it

I tear apart the app function by function, comment out what's not neccesary and put trace statements wherever the bug is.

There are levels of escalation:

1) kick a beach ball around
2) walk around the office
3) go to Star Bucks & get a cup
4) take a walk around the block
5) go home

Well went to the bathroom for a while but got distracted because there was a sign inside the stall that said not to flush paper towels. So I was then thinking of a scenario of why you would carry paper towels from the sinks over to the stalls to the flush. Then I begin wondering why some people have issues making it in to the toilet so to speak. I then wondered what some peoples home bathrooms must be like or maybe they just don’t have enough respect to take a little more caution.

So then I took out the majority of code I was having problems with and thought I was close but then was defeated miserably. 

So now I will search for a beach ball to kick around the office walking to starbucks around the block.....actually Im just going to go home.

At the point where I'm frustrated enough to give up and go home I, er, give up and go home, banishing the problem from my head. Often by the time I'm a block away from the office I've found the piece of the puzzle I'm missing. Usually I realize it's because I'm lost in a million details and lost sight of the bigger picture.

BTW, it can't be a pretend "I'm going home hoping to solve the problem unconsciously." It has to be a serious "Forget it, I hate computers--I'm going home."

I used to work for a guy who wrote MASM code (interrupt code for modems).  Anyway, we had another employee who was, to put it nicely, kind of dim.  We'll call him Newman.

So whenever my boss got stuck, he'd call Newman into his office and start describing what the piece of code was supposed to be doing.

Newman would ask "Why?".  Repeatedly.  So my boss would have to go into greater detail and in the process, he'd either figure out the issue or at least discover some new ways to come at it.

some times im afraid i might be that Nimrod err, Newman.

I cry!

Edit:  I Cry
Edit again: isnt crying like, kind of a creative solution? i didnt come up with it. but i kind of wish i had, because then maybe i would re write the code to insert balloons or something fun like that. then again, maybe i wouldnt. i dont know

Minh wrote:

There are levels of escalation:


5) go home

Where you are guaranteed to come up with the answer 59 minutes into a one hour commute. Happens to me almost daily.

Minh wrote:

There are levels of escalation:

1) kick a beach ball around
2) walk around the office
3) go to Star Bucks & get a cup
4) take a walk around the block
5) go home

Oddly enough, I'm having one of those days and I've done the following:

1) Thrown a football up and down the hall
2) walked around outside
3) drank a soda (oh man...i haven't had one in a few weeks and wow!)
4) banged a golf ball on my desk until my office mate got annoyed
5) surfed channel 9
6) thinking about going home.

I'll say one thing nobody else has.

...work late...

I'm insane, so disregard, but I drill down into the thing deeper and deeper.  Something not working quite right?  Single step each line (and jump into everything).  If that doesn't help, I'll check the disassembly.

Harlequin wrote:



I'll say one thing nobody else has.

...work early...

Fixed.

It depends on the bug

Generally though I seriously abuse the debugger, like enabling first-chance exceptions for everything (of course, that only works if you're using or getting an exception.)

Then there's plan B - talk to someone else about the problem, this works because 80% of the time you're talking it through and suddenly slap your head with the realisation that you know what's causing it. The rest of the time you've got help with the problem.

WHine. Moan. Complain. (I need to watch my language). Go home. Have a strange dream....