I'm not really making a point, more wondering whether this is a scenario that has room for a more effective approach. Like most programmers, I'm sure, I approach most errors I encounter relatively confidently, and they usually don't have me struggling for hours.

This one had me baffled for a bit, though, and I was fearing having to spend a couple of days on tracking it down - or having to give up. Sometimes those happen, and it'd be great if there are ways to have that happen less often.