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Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#41

Post by dijit »

danso wrote: post #31

> The remedy for the A350-941 problem is straightforward according to the AD: install Airbus software updates for a permanent cure, or switch the aeroplane off and on again. The subhed and the above graf say it's as straightforward to fix as installing Airbus software patches. But I assume this process is not as streamlined or convenient as iOS or Tesla OTA auto-updates. Anyone have insight to what installing patches…

The problem isn’t the update itself, which is actually straightforward. It’s the fact that as soon as you modify the software you must do a c check on the craft.

Which is a horribly long process, around 6,000 man-hours and puts the aircraft out of commission for a few weeks.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#42

Post by 420codebro »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #20
BrentOzar wrote: post #11

I think the comments here say more about us as an audience than they do about the Airbus. We're totally accustomed to hardware & software problems whose solution is, "just restart it," and we don't even find it all that disturbing - mostly just humorous. Our standards as developers & testers have gotten pretty low. I think the only way you'd see outrage here at HN is if the restart involved a real physical crash (as…

That's not necessarily a "low" standard. It's that the value of preventing a reboot every few days is much lower than other things we could spend our time on. Mandatory oftware perfection would be a huge drag on valuable new features.

Excuse me for this: But that is a heinously horseshit answer.

This isn't some app on your iPhone to find someone to fuck. We are talking about an airliner with many souls on board. Taking extra time to prevent a periodic reboot due to an unexplained / unresolved issue is the norm in these use cases (life critical systems).

Please don't ever work on anything life critical - your attitude is completely incompatible.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#43

Post by StreamBright »

Zigurd wrote: post #34
StreamBright wrote: post #6

Software engineering needs some significant improvements if we would like to keep using critical systems like aircrafts. It is getting to the point where serious software problems are impacting everyday life, not in a good sense.

That's a very broad statement. Focusing on specifics would be more helpful. For example, 149 hours isn't that long, especially for aircraft which have high duty cycle percentages. Why didn't the original test plan estimate how long it would take to find a certain percentage of [insert-bug-type-here], and find this issue? Would re-testing the code-base pro-actively find related latent issues? But none of these kinds o…

Is it too broad to expect software working properly? 149 hours mean time between failures (MTBF) is extremely low. Comparing that to hard drives (1000 000) or anything that has complex electronics and mechanics is laughable.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#44

Post by srcmap »

hoseja wrote: post #35

That is 2^29 milliseconds. I dread to imagine the reasons leading to 28-bit millisecond time in an airplane.

I first encountered such bug way back in 1996 time frame. When I tested embedded system nonestop for ~25 days and system has issue. It is counter wrap around time for 2^31 if counting once every millisecond.

From that point on, I make sure test cover counter wrap around in 2^31, 2^32 etc. Until one day, someone told me the system I worked on, deploy in Comcast data center has issue after ~250 days......

I used hearing news about Newton, Win98, 777 etc has issue after 25 days, 49 days, etc. It is very easy to guess what the potential issues were.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#45

Post by P_I_Staker »

briandear wrote: post #38
BrentOzar wrote: post #11

I think the comments here say more about us as an audience than they do about the Airbus. We're totally accustomed to hardware & software problems whose solution is, "just restart it," and we don't even find it all that disturbing - mostly just humorous. Our standards as developers & testers have gotten pretty low. I think the only way you'd see outrage here at HN is if the restart involved a real physical crash (as…

> I think the only way you'd see outrage here at HN is if the restart involved a real physical crash Or if it were an American company. There wasn’t any outrage when Germanwings’s lack of attention to their suicidal pilot’s mental health even though there were significant warning signs before he crashed a plane into the Alps. Little outrage over Malaysian Air despite their pilot practicing his suicidal crash in the s…

Both of the examples you gave were of mental health issues, which we're shitty at handling as a society. I've seen multiple posts on reddit about people "glamorizing" mental health problems, when really they're just more comfortable openly talking about it. People still just don't want to hear it. We don't see these problems as real issues to be dealt with as a society. There's still widespread belief that these are personal failings. People need to shut up about it and get on with their life. Otherwise, we need to identify these people so we can avoid them.

Your claim that American companies are getting the shaft is complete nonsense. It's classic US conservative insanity. It is not a shock, nor is it anti-American bias, that concious engineering decisions which result in loss of life get more scrutiny and outrage. There was plenty of outrage for the VW emissions scandle. Here, not only has there not been any deaths, but an update's been provided. If you seriously think there will be no outrage for a european engineering disaster here, you're crazy.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#46

Post by Havoc »

sokoloff wrote: post #33
fluffything wrote: post #24

Software has a bug. Patch with a fix is released. Some users don't want to update for reasons and demand a workaround. The workaround sucks. How is this news?

The workaround doesn’t even suck, IMO.

Yeah it's literally a joke. "Have you tried turning it off & back on?"

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#47

Post by _ea1k »

BrentOzar wrote: post #11

I think the comments here say more about us as an audience than they do about the Airbus. We're totally accustomed to hardware & software problems whose solution is, "just restart it," and we don't even find it all that disturbing - mostly just humorous. Our standards as developers & testers have gotten pretty low. I think the only way you'd see outrage here at HN is if the restart involved a real physical crash (as…

Or maybe it is a testament to how high our standards are that the expectation is that we should essentially never have to restart things.

I can't say that my car has ever gone 149 hours without a "reboot" of some kind or another.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#48

Post by ungzd »

BrentOzar wrote: post #11

I think the comments here say more about us as an audience than they do about the Airbus. We're totally accustomed to hardware & software problems whose solution is, "just restart it," and we don't even find it all that disturbing - mostly just humorous. Our standards as developers & testers have gotten pretty low. I think the only way you'd see outrage here at HN is if the restart involved a real physical crash (as…

> Our standards as developers & testers have gotten pretty low.

It's just an unsolved problem. No one never knew how to write complex robust software. Even with memory-safe languages. Even with advanced type systems, generative tests, immutability and advanced concurrency primitives.

And it's not a discipline problem.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#49

Post by PunchTornado »

dijit wrote: post #41
danso wrote: post #31

> The remedy for the A350-941 problem is straightforward according to the AD: install Airbus software updates for a permanent cure, or switch the aeroplane off and on again. The subhed and the above graf say it's as straightforward to fix as installing Airbus software patches. But I assume this process is not as streamlined or convenient as iOS or Tesla OTA auto-updates. Anyone have insight to what installing patches…

The problem isn’t the update itself, which is actually straightforward. It’s the fact that as soon as you modify the software you must do a c check on the craft. Which is a horribly long process, around 6,000 man-hours and puts the aircraft out of commission for a few weeks.

good. I don't want someone to update the software and next day send it in a commercial flight.

Re: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners need to be hard-rebooted after 149 hours

#50

Post by pcl »

hoseja wrote: post #35

That is 2^29 milliseconds. I dread to imagine the reasons leading to 28-bit millisecond time in an airplane.

Presumably someone is using the high four bits for some other purpose. It wouldn't surprise me if parts of an A350's avionics software is old enough that those sorts of space optimizations made sense.
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