How a PHP-Sybase Native Extension Bug Caused Mysterious Empty Query Results

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Around 2016, a PHP developer at Racing Post in London encountered a baffling intermittent production bug where database queries randomly returned empty results with no error messages. The application relied on a legacy stack including PHP 5, a Sybase database, and a native C extension to bridge the two. Restarting PHP temporarily restored service, suggesting stale process state, but the root cause remained elusive. Standard debugging — reviewing query logic, comparing successful and failed requests, and searching developer forums — yielded no answers. The investigation ultimately pointed toward the native C extension sitting between PHP and Sybase as the likely source of the fault.

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