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I am searching for a word or a couple of words to describe the following situation:

A login webpage isn't working (i.e. someone can't log in) (for example the login page of Gmail). A user is trying to login, through multiple attempts and in different ways, without success. He asks an expert for advice about this issue and that specialist comes to help him. The expert tries to login with the user's device, doing what looks like the same exact procedure, and the login works at the first try.

In this situation it looks like the "presence" of the expert was the only difference between a failed login and a successful login.

I am looking for a word to describe this situation where just the very presence of an expert seems to changes the outcome of the situation without the expert doing anything on purpose, just acting normally.

UPDATE:

Example sentence in which I would use the word I am looking for:

Let me think about it.

Rocco Mancin
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    Hello, Rocco, and here's a big warm welcome to ELU. Please note the wording at the single-word-requests tag: "This tag is for questions seeking a single word that fits a meaning. To ensure your question is not closed as off-topic, please be specific about the intended use of the word. YOU MUST INCLUDE A SAMPLE SENTENCE demonstrating how the word would be used." – Arm the good guys in America Dec 15 '17 at 19:00
  • This question is surely a duplicate of this one, which was closed (IMHO) wrongly as a duplicate of another question. – Laurel Dec 15 '17 at 19:05
  • @laurel this is a different question because here the things works when the expert is there. I am searching for a word regarding the expert presence – Rocco Mancin Dec 15 '17 at 19:14
  • It doesn't quite describe the "it works when I call the help line" effect you're looking for, but in programmer's jargon an error that goes away when you try to examine it is called a "Heisenbug". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug – Simon Dec 15 '17 at 19:19
  • @simon nice play of words "heisenbug" – Rocco Mancin Dec 15 '17 at 19:34

3 Answers3

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We (in the IT support industry - or at least in my sphere of influence) refer to this phenomena as the "law of standover-tivity". When someone is standing over you, whatever you're claiming isn't working, works.

This can also be applied to when you take your car to the mechanic and it refuses to make the noise that plagued you consistently up until the exact moment you arrived at the mechanic's shop.

EDIT: Apparently this word is a trade secret because it is not found in the dictionary! :-)

Kristina Lopez
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    "law of standover-tivity" describes quite well this kind of situation – Rocco Mancin Dec 15 '17 at 19:32
  • We use it to make the other person feel better because it surely feels stupid to report a problem and then not be able to recreate it in front of tech support! :-) – Kristina Lopez Dec 15 '17 at 19:34
  • I have a doubt now: is this statement applicable only if an expert person is watching you or just any person is watching you? – Rocco Mancin Dec 15 '17 at 19:41
  • Going by your posting..."I am looking for a word to describe this situation where just the very presence of an expert seems to changes the outcome of the situation without the expert doing anything on purpose, just acting normally."...the law of standover-tivity applies to an expert, standing over the person. – Kristina Lopez Dec 15 '17 at 19:45
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I might use aura. The fiction is that the person has a sphere of good influence/luck around him/her due to his/her competence.

Dave
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I encounter this often, and when I refer to it as the car mechanic syndrome, people seem to understand what I mean.  This is a reference to the legendary tendency of a car that has been behaving badly (e.g., making a strange noise, or air conditioning not working) to start working correctly when you take it to a service center to have a mechanic repair it.

Scott - Слава Україні
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