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experience

I blocked the release on Friday and whole team look at me like I kill their cat

Trần Phương Thảo@thao_qa

September 7, 2026 · 2 min read

#1 in Works On My Machine

Story time 😅. Friday 4pm, release for our Australian client at 5pm. Everything is green. Dev team already ordered bubble tea to celebrate.

I do my last check on real device, the old Android phone that nobody want to use. Checkout button not work. Tap, nothing happen. On iPhone fine, on Chrome desktop fine, on the dev laptop of course fine. "Works on my machine" 3 times in 10 minutes.

I write in channel: "Release blocked, checkout broken on Android 9". Silence. Then 14 people typing. Then the PM call me, not to ask about the bug, but to ask if I am "sure it is not my phone".

Cause: dev used Array.prototype.at() in the new cart code. Very nice method. Not exist in the WebView on that phone, which never get update and is still Chrome 83. The app is inside a WebView wrapper, no polyfill, the error is silent, the button do nothing. The transpiler did not touch it because .at() is a method, not syntax, and our browserslist did not include the old WebView.

Fix was 1 line (arr[arr.length - 1]). Release go out Monday. Then I check analytics: 11% of the client's users are on Android 9 and 10. So the "nobody use this phone" phone is 11% of the money 🐞

What I learn:

  • Keep one old device on the desk. The ugly one. It is your best teammate.
  • Check analytics before anybody say "nobody use it".
  • Syntax get transpiled, methods need polyfill. Not the same thing. Now I know, and I tell everybody, even when they don't ask 😅
  • Blocking a release is not personal. But bring bubble tea anyway, it helps.

Monday the tech lead say thank you in standup. Small thing but I almost cry. Has anyone else been the villain for one evening and the hero on Monday?

#qa#testing#javascript#android

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Comments

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Sam Whitaker@segfault_sam#6 in Works On My Machine
the ugly old phone on the desk is the most senior member of every qa team
4 net votes
Iryna Melnyk@iryna_qa#8 in Works On My Machine
Yes! I blocked a release once because of the date format in Polish locale and our team lead didn't talk to me whole evening. Monday he bought me coffee) Old device advice is gold, I keep a Samsung from 2018 for exactly this
6 net votes
Trần Phương Thảo@thao_qa#1 in Works On My Machine
Old Samsung team 🐞 they are the real heroes
4 net votes
佐藤はるか Haruka@nekomata_games1 rep in Works On My Machine
thao-san, blocking releases is your love language (=^･ω･^=) I respect it even if I fear it
3 net votes
Trần Phương Thảo@thao_qa#1 in Works On My Machine
Haha yes, and testing in production is yours 😅
2 net votes
Sayan Mukherjee@bong_bugs#3 in Works On My Machine
QA villain arc is the best arc. ami ekbar pujo r aage release block korechilam. full office angry. bug was in the payment page. after pujo everyone said thank you. eki obostha 🐟
6 net votes
Kelechi Nnaji@abeg_compile#3 in Works On My Machine
As a dev, sorry on behalf of all of us 😂 .at() got me too. core-js with a browserslist that actually includes the old WebView would have caught it
3 net votes
Trần Phương Thảo@thao_qa#1 in Works On My Machine
Thank you for honest dev 😅 yes, now we add core-js and fix the browserslist
3 net votes
Luis Treviño@luis_qa_mty#8 in Works On My Machine
thao you did the job. the villain is the one who ships broken checkout, not the one who finds it. I blocked a release one time because Spanish accents broke the PDF, the product manager called me "el aguafiestas" for a month 🤣
2 net votes
Divya Ramanathan@divya_ramanathan1 rep in Works On My Machine
As a manager: this is exactly the person I want on my team. If anyone made you feel like the villain for this, that is a culture bug and someone should file it.
5 net votes
Priya Rawat@priya_tests#6 in Works On My Machine
same same 🙂 friday ko release block karo toh sab dushman, monday ko sab dost
6 net votes
Kuya Migs@kuya_migs_codes1 rep in Works On My Machine
Respeto, Thao. Sa Pilipinas maraming users naka-old Android pa rin, so ganito talaga lagi. Bookmarking "syntax gets transpiled, methods need polyfill" para sa mga students ko 💪
8 net votes