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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

#71

Post by londons_explore »

PunchTornado wrote: post #49
dijit wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do.

As long as the hardware has been tested, and the software update tested on different hardware, then as long as the test hardware and my hardware are nominally the same, and as long as the software has basic "self test the basics of every component on startup", then I don't see a reason to do more tests.

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

#72

Post by londons_explore »

Nokinside wrote: post #58
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…

To my knowledge all upgradeable software is treated exactly like a new part. Upgrade must be certified, and is visible in part databases with part number. There must be a chain of trust. If it's a field upgradeable part, it's delivered in flash drives. If it's something more fundamental, they take the aviation computer out and update the EEPROM. Certifying a upgrade is the hard part.

Once an upgrade is certified though, does it need to be recertified on every plane?

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

#73

Post by P_I_Staker »

hestipod wrote: post #65
P_I_Staker wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I even dispute the notion that there is anything wrong with being anti-American. It's not a personal insult unless one chooses to take it as such. I am American by birth, have lived abroad, and find the way things are done in the US to be abhorrent on many fronts. It seems to me anything done well elsewhere is rejected out of some weird sense of independence. America's profit driven healthcare business ruined my life…

The only thing I'll say is that I get annoyed by certain knee jerk anti-American, pro foreign sentiments. It can be a bit much. Especially when other countries are wrestling with the same issues, and may even be worse in some regards.

Otherwise, I agree. Specifically, the criticism of our health care system. How people can see no issue with it is beyond me. There's conservatives that literally think the problem is us treating people in the ER, instead of letting them die. Disgusting.

OP is completely off base on this issue. The examples he gave are not an apples to apples comparison. The idea that we wouldn't criticize an EU company for making boneheaded business/engineering decisions that cost lives is ludicrous.

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

#74

Post by hestipod »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #73
hestipod wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I even dispute the notion that there is anything wrong with being anti-American. It's not a personal insult unless one chooses to take it as such. I am American by birth, have lived abroad, and find the way things are done in the US to be abhorrent on many fronts. It seems to me anything done well elsewhere is rejected out of some weird sense of independence. America's profit driven healthcare business ruined my life…

The only thing I'll say is that I get annoyed by certain knee jerk anti-American, pro foreign sentiments. It can be a bit much. Especially when other countries are wrestling with the same issues, and may even be worse in some regards. Otherwise, I agree. Specifically, the criticism of our health care system. How people can see no issue with it is beyond me. There's conservatives that literally think the problem is us…

I just don't think nationalism is anything but damaging. I am a human being. My self worth isn't related to where I was randomly born. I have no allegiance or pride owed to a passport. Such tribalism is used to justify wars and greed and lots of bad stuff. Even in in posts like these the conversation at its root is "offense" at criticism of "team". Poor behavior is poor behavior regardless of who is doing it, but some teams think theirs is more justified. The team that I think matters is humanity. Nationality is an administrative bother to me.

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

#75

Post by viraptor »

mangatmodi wrote: post #23
viraptor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not scary and it's a good, known workaround. But it's software - we shouldn't say "there are no solutions". The solution is: fix this problem and add long runtime testing to the qa process. Especially if this is a known issue in other planes.

When dealing with physical systems it is impossible to have no bugs. To give an extreme example, there is a not a small chance that the cosmic rays can change a bit in a system's memory - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2580933/cosmic-rays-what... The issue here is overflow due to time. The time is saved in a variable (don't know how much bits), which overflows after the gives period. Now there are two options 1.…

> it is impossible to have no bugs.

I agree with that. But once you know about a specific big, there is always a solution.

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

#76

Post by hoseja »

K2L8M11N2 wrote: post #61
hoseja wrote: post #35

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

Maybe it’s counting in microseconds?

Then it would be ~153 hours to be near a bit overflow.

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

#77

Post by fluffything »

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.

It doesn't suck unless you forget to turn it off and back on.
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