> under JDK1.4.1 once 2036 files are open any subsequent opens will delete the file that was supposed to be opened.
Obviously this is bad.
It was worse to debug. "Opening files" includes opening Java class files or JARs, so we'd see a system with some class files or jars missing and spent ages trying to work out why deployment was failing.
Then I saw files class files disappear in front of me while I was using the system. That was one of the biggest WTF moments of my career. I assumed someone else was on the computer, then I assumed a virus, then hardware corruption.
It didn't occur to us to think the JVM would delete files instead of opening them for a long time.
Here's the reference in the Java bug database: https://bugs.java.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4779905