As devs, we all hit bugs that feel impossible — until we fix them and realise it was one tiny, stupid thing.
Here are a few real ones that burned hours (or days) of my life
🐛 1. Forgot to .await a setTimeout wrapper
Tried using a Promise with setTimeout inside an async function, and forgot to await it.
Time lost: 2 hours
Fix: Added await — everything worked
🐛 2. Typo in NODE_ENV
Wrote process.env.NDE_ENV by accident. Everything silently failed in production.
Time lost: 3 hours
Fix: Eye strain, then fixing one missing letter.
🐛 3. Mutated a React state object directly
I had:
const [formData, setFormData] = useState({ name: "" });
Then I did formData.name = "John" instead of using setFormData.
Couldn’t figure out why nothing updated.
Time lost: 1 hour
Fix: Realised I was mutating state directly. Used setFormData({ ...formData, name: "John" }) instead.
🐛 4. Calling a function directly inside useEffect
It executed on every render. Classic mistake. Caused an infinite loop.
Time lost: 2 hours
Fix: Wrapped it in another function or used the right deps.
🐛5. Missing dependency in Next.js [slug].js file
Was naming my file slug.js and wondering why it didn’t work.
Time lost: 2 hours
Fix: Rename to [slug].js. Boom.
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