Would it have been possible to generate a list of commits on timeline and perform bisects in a method similar to binary search? Or that was already done and still 293k boots were needed? I am genuinely curious.
That's what bisect means. You do a binary search for the breaking commit
The human brain struggles when it has to execute almost, but not quite, the same exercises over and over again. It becomes a blur and after a while you can’t recall if you ran all of the steps this cycle (if you can’t automate the test well) and all it takes is typing “bad” when you meant “good” to end in failure. Which doesn’t sound like a big likelihood but when you’re testing a negative it’s much easier to get your wires crossed.