Hunting the White Whale
Sometimes when testing software you will come across the dreaded white whale. In my case this was a crash that only I have reproduced, but our clients were hitting it quiet often. Every time I hit the crash it seemed something different caused it, and was only reproducible 12% of the time but I had clients hitting the crash left and right. So “Call me Ishmael” I had to hunt this white whale down. I spent 3 weeks hunting using all kinds of tools and using resources just like Moby Dick did to hunt down the white whale, to no avail. Then one day when hunting a run of the mill crash that I knew how to reproduce I hit the whale. It turns out I was running all these tools to catch the run of the mill crash that it slowed down the software enough to allow me to hit the white whale. After I finally got all the info in it was a line change of code and the white whale was no longer a bother.
As the picture states there are several white whales out there in the testing world. You will run into them and you will hunt them down. Just don’t get to frustrated when you can’t, because sometimes you will run across and figure it out without even realizing that is what you where doing. Remember to think outside the box, and use all the tricks you can. As testers get more tricky, so will the bugs.
