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A mandelbug is a complex type of bug or glitch in a software product that is difficult to fix because of its complexity and unpredictability. The mandelbug is named after Prof. Benoit Mandelbrot, a Polish-born mathematician who built a career at IBM, emigrating after World War II.
Various types of difficult and complicated bugs could be called mandelbugs. The common idea is that these bugs are resistant to fixes, because of their chaotic or “non-deterministic” properties. For example, one common characteristic of a mandelbug would be the difficulty that test teams would have in replicating it consistently. Bugs like these are often hidden in the corners of code, in any ambiguities around timing, the use of variables or other aspects of the underlying source code for the product. Similar types of terms include bohr bug, heisenberg and shrodinbug.