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.
Related Stories
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/01/787_software_bug_can_shut_down_planes_generators/
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a new airworthiness directive (PDF) for Boeing's 787 because a software bug shuts down the plane's electricity generators every 248 days.
“We have been advised by Boeing of an issue identified during laboratory testing,” the directive says. That issue sees “The software counter internal to the generator control units (GCUs) will overflow after 248 days of continuous power, causing that GCU to go into failsafe mode.”
When the GCU is in failsafe mode it isn't making any power. That'll be bad news if all four of the GCUs aboard a 787 were powered up at the same time, because all will then shut down, “resulting in a loss of all AC electrical power regardless of flight phase.”
And presumably also turning the 787 into a brick with no power for its fly-by-wire systems, lighting, climate control or in-flight movies. The fix outlined in the directive is pretty simple: make sure you turn the GCUs off before 248 days elapse. Boeing is working on a fix and the FAA says “Once this software is developed, approved, and available, we might consider additional rulemaking.”
For now, before you board a 787 it's probably worth asking the pilot if he can turn it off and turn it on again.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Airbus A350 software bug forces airlines to turn planes off and on every 149 hours
Some models of Airbus A350 airliners still need to be hard rebooted after exactly 149 hours, despite warnings from the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) first issued two years ago.
In a mandatory airworthiness directive (AD) reissued earlier this week, EASA urged operators to turn their A350s off and on again to prevent "partial or total loss of some avionics systems or functions".
The revised AD, effective from tomorrow (26 July), exempts only those new A350-941s which have had modified software pre-loaded on the production line. For all other A350-941s, operators need to completely power the airliner down before it reaches 149 hours of continuous power-on time.
Concerningly, the original 2017 AD was brought about by "in-service events where a loss of communication occurred between some avionics systems and avionics network" (sic). The impact of the failures ranged from "redundancy loss" to "complete loss on a specific function hosted on common remote data concentrator and core processing input/output modules".
In layman's English, this means that prior to 2017, at least some A350s flying passengers were suffering unexplained failures of potentially flight-critical digital systems.
Not a power of two. I wonder why 149 hours?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @03:01AM (4 children)
Did Microsoft write the software?
(Score: 5, Funny) by toddestan on Friday April 03 2020, @03:38AM (3 children)
This is a Boeing cock-up. If it was written by Microsoft it would crash after 49.7 days.
(Score: 3, Funny) by istartedi on Friday April 03 2020, @07:29AM
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nuke on Friday April 03 2020, @09:00AM (1 child)
My own first thought, seriously.
For younger readers, Win95 and 98 really would crash after 49.7 days, because of a timer overflow. The real joke however was that it was years before anyone noticed, because Win9x would invariably crash for some other reason long before that time was reached. It was December 2001 before it became generally known and Microsoft admitted it.
https://www.cnet.com/news/windows-may-crash-after-49-7-days/ [cnet.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Friday April 03 2020, @09:03PM
And of course, since history would never ever repeat itself:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2553549/all-the-tcp-ip-ports-that-are-in-a-time-wait-status-are-not-closed-aft [microsoft.com]
Fun fact: I actually got a Windows Vista system to hit that bug.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Hartree on Friday April 03 2020, @03:14AM (1 child)
*Ding*
"51 days of uptime has been reached. Shall the flight management system automatically turn the airplane off and then on again? Press yes to do this now, or no to save all your passengers before rebooting."
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday April 03 2020, @04:36PM
The aircraft computer has had Windows 10 installed.
To restore the system to a usable state, please send 3 bitcoin to Microsoft's ransomware collection division.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday April 03 2020, @03:23AM
I mean, that would be a bad April Fool's joke. If it's not a joke, someone's head really needs to be seen rolling down Main Street.
Seriously, I've worked on this kind of "uptime >= years" thing. In my case it was cable companies and cell phones. So if I messed up a channel may be unavailable, or a call won't go through. Nothing close to the "plane falling out the sky" serious, yet I always made sure my shit would run for as long as management let me run tests.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @03:30AM (2 children)
I'm honestly a bit surprised that the planes are kept on for so long.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @02:41PM
Planes on the ground produce no revenue.
So most airlines try hard to keep every plain airborne as much as possible.
So they are very often scheduled such that time on ground is minimal before they take off again for another flight leg.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @03:40AM (1 child)
So... That stale data builds up in 51 days and feeds back into the inputs?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 03 2020, @04:26AM
I thought computerfags called this kind of stuff "memory leaks." And if Boeing are using something like VxWorks they shouldn't have total tards fucking around with it. I doubt they're using VxWorks though...probably Windows CE or XP running on an Atom processor or some happy horseshit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crahman on Friday April 03 2020, @03:44AM (6 children)
The fact that this particular problem continues to be found in Boeing's software indicates that a larger problem exists within the organization, which should disqualify them from the production of critical systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:16AM (2 children)
Yeah, but the US has no alternate large-civilian-airliner producer anymore, so you take what you can get.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday April 03 2020, @06:06AM (1 child)
Good reason to not approve monopoly creating mergers.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deadstick on Friday April 03 2020, @09:40AM
Your typical aerospace merger is a case of eating something that's died of disease. If you catch it, it's your own damn fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @05:18AM
OH But hey! Look there's a kid trying to eat a real Kinder egg! Look over there!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @10:52AM
Boeing are offering to buyout all their current staff as a result of this recession.
The company isn't going to be making aircraft for much longer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @12:44PM
What problem? [boeing.com]
(Score: 2) by Luke on Friday April 03 2020, @06:23AM
Hmmm, I see these things are assembled nearby Seattle.
Probably they got a local yokel software company to write some crappy software like "Windows for Widebodies" or something...
... eh? Nearby Seattle you said? Uh-oh!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @07:56AM (5 children)
Ok so wtf happened to them? Does this not get taught anymore?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Friday April 03 2020, @09:36AM (1 child)
Ediukeishon is important but kost kuts are importanter!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday April 03 2020, @04:43PM
As lung as duh stock prize goes uup moar.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @10:55AM
Safety critical standards generate far more paperwork than actual code.
Safety documents don't even list the code, just the requirements and results of testd.
It's Safety Theatre, divorced from the code.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @12:48PM (1 child)
Nobody cares about planes falling from the sky. The really important thing is that employees are not white [boeing.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @09:15PM
Must really burn you shitheads up seeing the fall of white-centric media. White people are the minority on planet Earth, you're just upset that advertising is now targeting demographics that make you uncomfortable.
That smell wrinkling your nose? All you gotta do is pull your head out of that gaping asshole.
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Friday April 03 2020, @02:21PM (2 children)
Mayday! Mayday! Tower, this is United 6901, our systems have locked and we are going to crash!
United 6901, SeaTac Tower, have you tried rebooting?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 03 2020, @04:45PM (1 child)
If rebooting doesn't work, the next standard procedure is to reinstall Windows.
The 375 floppy disks are in a 3 ring binder at the fright engineer's station. Hopefully all the disks are still there.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04 2020, @03:16AM
Wouldn't reinstalling windows depressurize the plane?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @03:02PM
Weren't there such problems years ago already? Oh, reading the article looks like there really was. Not my brain playing tricks on me.
Now it's an even shorter reboot cycle. D'oh.