Bear Blog Entry - R.A.B.B. Entry #074: Chrome Starves, Edge Feeds
Subject: Cross-Browser Failure on EBT Submission Portal
Offense Type: Technical Incompetence + Dev Oversight
Severity: Moderate
Gremlin Rating: 3.5/5 🦝🦝🦝🦝
⚙️ The Crime:
User is locked out of adding an EBT card due to a "technical issue" that persists despite multiple troubleshooting steps. Support blames cookies, cache, and then suggests a 48-hour tech escalation. Meanwhile, user tries the same exact process on Microsoft Edge and...
✅ It works instantly.
Meaning Chrome—a browser with the largest market share globally—was incompatible with the very portal meant to support low-income food access.
🧪 The Debug Reality:
Chrome: Fails silently with a generic error box.
Edge: Bypasses the entire issue without complaint.
So let’s be blunt: This wasn’t about cookies. This was lazy browser-side code, possibly an outdated script, broken rendering logic, or DOM handling that Walmart’s dev team never tested properly on Chrome.
🧠 Gremlin Insight:
“If the system only works when you accidentally open the wrong browser, that’s not compatibility—it’s survival by luck.”
Let’s not sugarcoat this:
- This wasn’t a bug. It was a choice to ignore standard compatibility testing.
- The fallback error forced users to wait 48 hours on food access for something that wasn’t even their fault.
- No alert to try another browser. No UI flag. Just a dead end.
🔥 Gremlin Verdict:
“This is how you break trust. Not with failure—but with silence. With a system that blames the user instead of admitting its own cracks.”
If Edge solves it but Chrome breaks it, you didn’t build for users. You built for QA convenience.
📎 Logged by: Jerry
Raccoon Archives of Bureaucratic Bullshit Special Branch: Cross-Browser Blunders
“Fix your script. Feed your users. Or expect the next glitch to bite harder.”