Weird but not so wonderful
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A customer called last week reporting a problem with a screen not updating properly. The screen in question uses a 3rd party grid control. I pulled out the laptop and start debugging. I found only one possible problem related to user input, that eventually will be fixed, but wanted to get her back working with an easy workaround. So, I called, thinking that it could all be resolved quickly with a remote. So I get connected, verify that everything is up to date, go to the problem screen, try a quick update to demonstrate that it works, and...it doesn't work! :omg: I pull up the code on my desktop and it misbehaves. I traced the problem back to one of the grid's events not firing. The code and executable work perfectly on the laptop and on at least one other test computer I have checked. There has to be a logical explanation for why this one component is behaving differently on different clients. I checked the grid's libraries on all three workstations and they are identical. It's probably going to be some obscure windows utility library that has been recently updated. Move to damage control mode and find another event that is reliable. Longer term, it's time to look for another component. It's not often that I am able to replicate these kind of customer issues, and tracking this down without an environment that exhibited the oddity would have been extremely difficult. Edit: Tried it again (code) on the desktop and it worked fine. The executable however fails to fire the event. I gave up trying to understand and identified a half-dozen places where I was using the faulty event and moved the code to another event that worked. Progress! :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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A customer called last week reporting a problem with a screen not updating properly. The screen in question uses a 3rd party grid control. I pulled out the laptop and start debugging. I found only one possible problem related to user input, that eventually will be fixed, but wanted to get her back working with an easy workaround. So, I called, thinking that it could all be resolved quickly with a remote. So I get connected, verify that everything is up to date, go to the problem screen, try a quick update to demonstrate that it works, and...it doesn't work! :omg: I pull up the code on my desktop and it misbehaves. I traced the problem back to one of the grid's events not firing. The code and executable work perfectly on the laptop and on at least one other test computer I have checked. There has to be a logical explanation for why this one component is behaving differently on different clients. I checked the grid's libraries on all three workstations and they are identical. It's probably going to be some obscure windows utility library that has been recently updated. Move to damage control mode and find another event that is reliable. Longer term, it's time to look for another component. It's not often that I am able to replicate these kind of customer issues, and tracking this down without an environment that exhibited the oddity would have been extremely difficult. Edit: Tried it again (code) on the desktop and it worked fine. The executable however fails to fire the event. I gave up trying to understand and identified a half-dozen places where I was using the faulty event and moved the code to another event that worked. Progress! :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Just went through (and am still going through) a perfectly fine application bombing after a thin client OS was updated. I rebuilt it on my system (in the thin-client environment) and it worked fine: put on user's system and it crashed mightily. Considering the unique environment of a development system, there's no question why that cry is heard oft-enough: "I works on my machine".
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010