I've noticed a pattern in almost every bug I've written up here: the fix never ends up where I started looking.
A validation error that looked like a schema problem turned out to be an encoding mismatch three layers upstream. A "frozen" simulator turned out to be working correctly — the bug was an unstated assumption in my evaluation algorithm, not the code executing it. A user's data disappearing turned out to be two browser tabs disagreeing about which one held the truth.
Every time, I started debugging with a theory about where the problem lived, and every time, the actual cause was one layer removed from that theory — not wrong code, but a wrong assumption about which code even mattered.
I don't think this is unique to me. I think it might be the actual shape of most non-trivial bugs: the symptom points at a location, and the location is almost never the cause.
So — what's yours? The moment you were dead certain the bug was in X, spent hours proving X was fine, and found it living quietly in Y instead. Doesn't have to be dramatic. I'm just curious whether everyone's "it wasn't where I thought" story rhymes with mine, or if there's a completely different shape to it depending on the stack.
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