observer effect

term

ops culturenetworking

When the act of measuring changes the behaviour being measured, so the fault disappears while you are watching for it.

Enabling debug logging slows a process just enough that a race no longer loses; attaching a capture changes buffering. The effect is not a nuisance to be worked around - it is a finding. A fault that vanishes under observation is telling you it depends on timing, which narrows the search considerably.

Also known as: heisenbug, probe effect

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