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The Register:
Boeing 787s must be turned off and on every 51 days to prevent 'misleading data' being shown to pilots
US air safety bods call it 'potentially catastrophic' if reboot directive not implemented
[...] The US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Boeing 787 operators to switch their aircraft off and on every 51 days to prevent what it called "several potentially catastrophic failure scenarios" – including the crashing of onboard network switches.
The airworthiness directive[*], due to be enforced from later this month, orders airlines to power-cycle their B787s before the aircraft reaches the specified days of continuous power-on operation.
The power cycling is needed to prevent stale data from populating the aircraft's systems, a problem that has occurred on different 787 systems in the past.
[*] The link in the article from The Register was copied correctly, and points to https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/US-2020-06-14. The actual FAA Airworthiness Directive appears to be: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/23/2020-06092/airworthiness-directives-the-boeing-company-airplanes.
At least I can take comfort that software in aircraft is probably more reliable than software in automobiles.
Previously:
(2019-07-25) Airbus A350 Software Bug Forces Airlines to Turn Planes Off and On Every 149 Hours
(2015-05-02) 787 Software Bug Can Shut Down Planes' Generators.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:12AM
I was too, but for longer routes you can get into a cycle where the plane is nearly always in action and not parked for the night. I'm thinking some longer transatlantic flights, where you take off in the US at 1800, arrive Europe at 0900, attach to shore power and let the cleaning and supply crew work in the cabin, leave at 1200 and arrive back at 1400.
I think Singapore Airlines between JFK and SIN and back, with stop in FRA each way was even tighter with only 2 hours between segments.