Funniest Software Bugs
“Yes, and she’s produced a map showing the radius within which we can send email to be slightly more than 500 miles. There are a number of destinations within that radius that we can’t reach, either, or reach sporadically, but we can never email farther than this radius.”
A jpeg parser, running on a surveillance camera, which crashed every time the company’s CEO came into the room. 100% reproducible error.
An address database that crashed when given street addresses on the upper East side of New York City. It worked fine for any other address in the country. It interpreted “149 E 72” for example, as a floating point number.
One of the localized versions of the video game “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” had name of the movie studio translated as “Carriage Return Linefeed Cinema” instead of “New Line Cinema” in the credits.
A Windows Phone 8 error that asks you to put in your Windows installation disc and restart the computer. It sounds too funny to be true, right? Apparently it’s not. According to some digging by WMPoweruser, it’s rare, but real.
Update (2018-07-24): Here’s an updated link for the Harris story (via Heather Flowers).
Update (2023-07-25): Jason Kottke:
Still one of my favorite internet things: The case of the 500-mile email.
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Here’s a FAQ that addresses some of the questions the more technically inclined among you may have about this story.
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