Singing Frog

A term in the IT and equipment maintenance industries used to describe a bug or problem reported by a user which, upon inspection, has no detectable cause, is unable to be reproduced, and simply "goes away" without any specific change in the equipment's settings or work done by the person servicing the problem.

This is not a derogatory term and while these problems are annoying and time-consuming the lack of explanation does not automatically place blame on the user.

The term is based on the classic Warner Brothers short, "One Froggy Evening", in which a singing and dancing frog will only perform for the construction worker who found it.

User: "My computer keeps freezing whenever I try to open <program>, specifically, when <detailed description>"
IT Helpdesk: "OK, I'll come down and have a look."

Much Later

IT Boss: "Did you fix User's problem?"
IT Helpdesk: "I couldn't find any problem, no matter how hard I tried. Guess it was a singing frog."

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