intermittent fault
termnetworkingops culture
A failure that occurs unpredictably and cannot be triggered on demand, so it cannot be tested against directly.
The instinct is to keep trying to reproduce it. The better move is to stop trying to trigger it and start trying to catch it: instrument the path, leave the capture running, and define in advance what evidence would settle the question. “Cannot reproduce” describes your laboratory, not the fault.
Also known as: intermittent failure, flapping fault