How Do You Handle a Scenario Where a Bug is Not Reproducible?

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In software testing, a non-reproducible bug represents a complex challenge where:

A reported issue cannot be consistently recreated
The bug appears sporadically
Traditional testing methods fail to capture the exact scenario

Any suggestions must appreciated :slightly_smiling_face:

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Isolate and Monitor: If you can’t find the root cause, try to isolate the part of the application where the bug occurs. Add extra logging and monitoring to that area to gather more information over time.

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  1. Analyse any logs or errors from when the bug did occur
  2. Try to recreate the exact conditions / actions / data as much as possible
  3. Analyse any logs from when you think the bug should have occurred again, and try to identify potential differences
  4. Look for similar logs and errors from when the bug occurred to try and identify any patterns
  5. Systematically change one variable at a time, based on what is deemed likely to have an influence
  6. Increase the logging if necessary and monitor for future occurrences

The amount of effort invested is also dependent on the significance of the bug and any potential risks it represents. Before diving “too deep”, I would also talk to the team to assess how much effort this merits, and whether we’re willing to accept the associated risks.

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Hi @ramanan - this occurs really in nearly every project or product.

The answers already given are great. Thus you should not only leave it to “testing” area, rather invest also with stakeholders and product owners and be very transparent and ask them, if the process which might have caused the bug is still needed or has other impediments maybe or if there are other risks to other process when trying to remove it and to check if the investigation and fixing is relative in cost regarding to the rare bug scenario.

Always keep the PO and stakeholder informed what the state is and try with them to test it. So it will not be a “testing”-Thing then anymore. :wink:

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