ProgrammerHumor
itWorkedYesterdayIDontKnowWhatHappened
Discussion
It's because you have a meeting today to demo the system. And it starts in ten minutes.
The code can smell your fear
So many times. Demo fails when it was working 5 minutes ago on the exact same system. Guess I forgot to appease the computer gods.
Who is doing date/time based calculations again
Possibly unwittingly relying on being in a specific time zone while working on a global team…
Possibly around the summer/wintertime switch...
The Unix timestamp caused a seg fault😭
February 29th
Why does this look AI generated?
Actually, this is NOT an upscaler. It seems like OP used Sora to write the text on the image. Compare the original image with the OP's for yourself, you'll see they're doing completely different poses and facial expressions.
For a second I thought my mind was giving a false positive for ai.
yup, poor Jim
Horrible AI upscaler
see my reply below
Does this actually happen
yes. sometimes you forget to build and think it's your current code that is running when it's not, sometimes the test database is reset and nothing work anymore, sometimes your coworkers decide to update dependancies without telling you, sometimes you just got lucky with race conditions for a while then not, sometimes third party soft just die for no reasons, sometimes your code wasn't well designed to run for too long and reached an unstable state, etc...
sometimes you forget to build
*gasp* The dreaded PEBKAC strikes again!
The worst is when it was working and then you build it again and suddenly it doesn't work, you clean everything reset cache and nothing works.
I've had local builds do that to me.
i once forgot to activate my venv and i was debugging for about 20 minutes
Not like is implied in the meme. Working code doesn't magically stop working unless something else changes, which it shouldn't. So either it didnt work in the first place even though you thought it did, or you fucked up and changed things without realizing it. That part does happen sometimes, to pretty much everyone.
I have a script that works 364 days a year. One day per year it breaks because the day before suddenly had 25 hours.
It is an error in the code obviously, but it runs errorfree 364/365 days
not setting env var is an example that could be a reason
yeah, sometimes is a problem with cache. either you had something from an old execution and you didnt clean it, or the old cache was just rewritten
Yeah. Reminds me of when I developed some code on my local machine, it ran perfectly fine, but threw errors left and right on the staging.
Turns out the staging had caching enabled, and mine did not. Ha, ha!
Not uncommon with a linter running as a separate process, it can silently fail at some point and you notice it the next day when it restores at project start.
Also TS caches can do some really funky things.
some config in some file updated, cannot be read/corrupted/missing etc. usually in the cache
Yup. Anything involving date management, for example, can have odd edge cases that cause it to fail on particular days
Anything that relies on external services. Also race conditions or other undefined behavior.
External services are always a suspect. And even if there are multiple internal services your service depends on, and the services are managed by other teams in your org, that can break things too if the other teams make a breaking change without telling.
Yeah, something else changed.
I had this happen when I don't do rebuild. But mostly in Java. It will use the previous class files generated. When you rebuild all the previous class files are cleared and it will start failing. So the code has come cyclic dependency you missed.
Yeah, a service we were using decided to shutdown the service without announcement, the code that utilized that service and worked perfectly yesterday gave more than 40 errors in one day. Changed the service provider and the code still works.
Another time, the library we are using updated the older function so our program started throwing errors. We bombarded the github issue on how it stopped magically that day and they fixed it in that day.
Your code is just one part of the whole, there are so many out-of-control variables that can make your code shake with errors, I feel grateful anytime a piece of code I wrote years ago still works. It reminds me of this Sagan quote: If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Another point: A code that throws errors and let you know there’s an issue is better than a code that fails and doesn’t let you know. Errors are misunderstood little fellas. They are not the harbingers of the doom, they are the messengers of the better future. They are part of the process. Read them, embrace them, thank them, learn from them. And then fix them and put them to their final resting place.
Until they decide to become a zombie and come back. Then you shoot them in the face.
Yes. Especially if there is interaction with other systems. Software rarely runs in isolation
Some external variable must have changed. Cache, packages e.t.c.
Yeah the thing that always gets me is debugging integration tests. We have a setup and teardown routine that runs before and after the test. That works fine.. unless you attach your debugger to a test run, and you stop the run before it runs the teardown. Then you end up with test garbage still in your local db, all integration tests will fail subsequently (for really weird reasons) and you'll have a really sad time until you realise that's what's happened.
I have seen it caused by c preprocessor macro that adds date of compilation and current git commit hash to help and version strings. Depending on locale and date, reserved memory for the string and length for copying and printing it did not match. So for one new hire, starting second week in the job, the project that worked well last week and was build from clean repository would segfault on startup.
For me this happens when I forget to connect to the VPN at the start of the work day.
youve ever heard of Windows update?
Often the „I didn’t change anything“ part is a wrong perception. For example when you have unknowingly created files that are gitignored due to a misconfigured build process and that fucks up your dev setup without you seeing any changes.
Isn't there a way to compare the current file with the previous one rather than doing something like scanning every line of code to see what you're missing
Usually a cache problem
Why is this template ai generated
It’s AI enhanced. The original is from the office.
More like AI ruined, look at him that's not even Jim anymore
Celebrity lookalike who does appearances at birthday parties and special events. Much cheaper and most people can't tell the difference from far enough away as long as he doesn't say anything
True it looks 4k
?
Do people keep forgetting that Ai generated pictures are banned on this sub, every other post now is ai generated
Even the posts hating on Ai still use ai art, it's frustrating
I think this one flew by because its based off an original meme
Yesterday you forgot to compile
Race conditions? Dependency changed? Database updated?
Did you run
sudo apt upgrade --fuckmyshitup
by any chance?
If it worked yesterday but not today, it didn't work yesterday either.
Yesterday it didn't work and I couldn't figure out why, today it works perfectly.
Must be solar storms! Again.
Y2K ! Y2K !
Forgot the -c flag the first time
Also: it used to work on previous builds I checked it multiple times in the past, let me show y… what the fuck?!
Meme is ok.. template modification is scary.
its called background package updates. oh so you think youre on version 6.420 suprise mofo 7.0! breaking change and you cant rollback mwuahaha
ai slop
how is this slop? This is a relatable issue and the image is based on an existing template?
*AI trash. OP is so lazy they jumped to AI prompting instead of finding any website that generates the image conventionally with custom text (or opening an image editor)
It wouldn't matter if it didn't make the image uncanny
Just a normal day in programming
Idc, it works on my machine.
Basically how goes my journey of creating a contract agreement generator and PDF manipulation. One day the PDF is perfect and next day it’s total shit. The contracts are done in markdown, then to html and then to PDF. (Hahah jaja ich bin ein dr doofenshmirtz)
The programmer dilemma: did I break it, or did it break me?
When I seen this happen, it was a time zone issue. UTC provided a different day than local time.
I can feel the vibes
blame typescript
For me it was a Git issue. User error of course, but ridiculously frustrating when solved issues reappear…
Dependencies.
Quick fix from other team for their backend, with update rest/graphql endpoint breaking backward compatibility? Been there, done that
It is actually MOBILE DEVELOPMENT lol
Your also working with a database so something in there could have easily been inserted/updated with a state that your service didn’t account for 🫠
Op wasn't actually running the code he was writing. It was still last week's docker or something.
Today for example the geolocation for google directions wasn't working because the place_id stored on the db adress for somenrestaurants had become obsolete and google didn't recognise it. Sometimes it's not only the source code that breaks.
Didnt reboot the system for weeks now.
Are they trivy scan errors on build time?
I had an error like this a few weeks ago, after a couple of hours of debugging it discovered it was caused by a compiler misoptimisation. I have no idea what finally triggered it.
I’m taking a python class and we are learning flask. I followed the setup made my little webpage then called it a night. Next day it took me an hour to figure out the venv.
" If date.datetime == dateToday': " is maybe the issue
Possible reasons:
external library update
system library update
compiler/interpreter update
if docker is used, image cache could be invalidated, and new image can be totally different, even with the same dockerfile
February 29
This sums up my career as a developer perfectly
you probably rebooted your pc
now the world will end
Users doing 17 totally unpredictable things.
In my experience it's always either referencing binaries you didn't expect, forgot to save, forgot to git add. Everything else is either you're making it up to save face or an external update.
Had the same thing, turns out I replaced dependency versions a few hours before stopping on the first day which were only pulled in after a reboot the next day. Took me very long to figure this out
if (rnd() < (RAND_MAX>>4))throw std::runtime_error("pure virtual function called");
If youre doing some kind og web-dev it could be an ild cookie session
Date changed, so a new branch was executed. (Got fucked up hard with Datetime.utc and datetime.utcnow in c#)
Shared env, another project deployed something that nuked your code.
Happened on my previous project so many times.
DNS is fucked
The dependencies you imported from that CDN in your frontend code, stopped working a long time ago. You might even have forgotten to include them in your commit from last month. But the browser cached them so everything went smoothly. Until the cache was gone.
Edge Case trophy achievement 🏆
When in doubt reboot it out.
(sort of new Dev here ;-;)
Me forgetting to start docker and spin up my SQL server before I run npm test and get confused.
Usually only takes me 2 mins to remember but it's still funny each time.
sounds like somebody has a case of the mondays
if (DateTime.Now >= new DateTime(2025,7,14))
throw;
we once found out that one particular test, which had been happily running for two years, would reliably fail when run on a Sunday. For perfectly understandable reasons too.
But we had never noticed because we normally didn't work on Sundays, so it kinda never came up :-D
What’s the point of putting the template through AI
For us that probably means the VPN is getting in the way
I've had a dependency of a dependency of a dependency go deprecated overnight between deployments (isn't rust great?) so I had 2 built-from-scratch systems where one was perfect and the other wouldn't build.
I guess I have to watch my dependencies but still
Rebasing...
Let's use CI/CD for everything guys. It will make everything so much easier to test..
A similar thing happened to my task this morning that put it back on my desk. After investigation, it was a different task merged in just after that caused the bug now associated with my task.
- as a php dev you run `composer update`
- as a nodejs dev you run `npm audit fix`
Tried that today, didn’t work. What’s really annoying, builds and works on my machine… shits the bed on test lol
Javascript
it's mechanical.
it's always mechanical.
Something in the environment the code runs in changes is the obvious answer.
Source: SWE/DevOps/Platform Engineer
Add nuking the docker volumes to your `make clean`
Yesterday was Sunday. It’s easy to run error free without users
hardcoded date, race conditions, error handling...
then it's the cache thing
Somebody has screwed up the pipeline. Again.
And that's why version control exists
In my case, it's always a Microsoft update "somewhere".
Must be a Salesforce thing
Ngl some of these never happened to me and I fear the day they will...
Plot twist: It didn't work yesterday, it just ran the old build
Jenkins 😡
I was in a hackathon. I migrated ny code on day 1 end. It freaking broke everything ffs. 😐
Day 1 took me 5+2 hours for design, development, deployment. Day 2 took me 6+1+1 hours, the deployment errors + the integration + enhancement. It still was shit. Day 3 which was after the end, took me 3 hours to make it fully functional again.
The source engine in a nutshell
My friend had a similar problem, turns out he forgot to use the virtual env I've set up.
Yesterday it was on a local workstation, today it is on prod :)
Race conditions and memory leak in the corner
It doesn't even have to be that rare and technical. Sometimes, it's just another service that is owned by another team that got deployed to staging without proper communication, and it screw you over. Just be calm, and always remember that you're working with technology here, not magic. So, everything happened because of a reason and you can explain it, then fix it.
I dont know man, my fireball dont stop working randomly.
See? Not magic. Technology.
But isn't any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from magic to us?
I had the opposite the other day.
NA variable undefined, cannot be selected.
If I did anything, it claim it was not that.
Is it NA? nope. Is it NULL? nope, can I convert it to character and say length under 5? nope.
so I could not filter it away. Tried '''' for missing and a bunch of other shit. Nothing worked at all.
Fast forward 4 hours, I'm losing my mind over it. I give up for the day. the next day, when I reboot my laptop, it just work without issue. It was NA all along, the whole thing was just corrupted or something.
No no no you have this all wrong.
To fix a bug you need to feed the code elves with “Got here” and “Not supposed to be here” logging statements.
Every time this comes up on my team it’s network latency nobody planned for
Unless something is broken, when things break - technology becomes basically magic. Like old ram sticks breaking down and silently corrupting game files to leave you stumped.
Cache
As once famous rapper said, cache rules everything around me
I love this
If it's not web it's the container, if not that the compiler, I hate all the special cases that make you lose your mind.
Race conditions and memory leak in the spotlight. Losing my religion
Also not mocking dates properly. I don’t know how many times our pipelines have broken just because it’s a different date
Containers cache in the other....
Excuse me, race conditions are now referred to as merit based threading and are actively encouraged.
You set env variables manually.