This is something that I used to hear from the developers. I bet I used it as a developer and then I got a change to use this phrase today.

I have a small task scheduled to run on a server to collect bug information. It ran every day at 3am, until a month ago. Since it’s not on my radar, it took me 2 weeks to notice. It took a while, but then I remembered: The network policy made me change my password, which should also be updated in the Task Scheduler. I fixed that.

Then last Thursday I see it stopped working again. I already found a way to revert to my old password, but obviously, did not remember to reset the password. So I fixed that.

But that did not fix the problem. After thinking about it for an hour I made a decision: It’s time to take a look at the logs. Of course the answer was there. (For those in the know, it’s the equivalent of RTFM).

Apparently, something happened when we published a new version of the Notes database. This something was my responsibility – I should have checked that the needed view was there, and it wasn’t erased. Which, it was.

I set everything in place, and I hope the collection will continue tonight.

Lessons:

• Even after unit testing and system testing, the environment can still change the performance of the application. And you may not even know how.
• Make sure you have logging for error in the application
• Use the logs.
• Stop using “something apparently happened”. It sounds even dumber when you say it yourself.