Turns out their user creation code used /dev/random, and the system was running out of entropy and so the code was blocking. Moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard would add entropy, thus cause the tests to resume.
Funny how this goes completely against the typical operant conditioning a user undergoes when working with computers. Usually if your software hangs up, you want to touch nothing and let it finish. But in this case it's actually additional user activity that's needed.
It seems perfectly in line with what I generally see. A hang up usually results in some desperately mashed combination of Esc, Space, and Enter, then clicking on absolutely everything, and finally mashing ctrl-alt-del in the hopes of something happening. The let it do its thing and wait crowd has always been on the higher end of the technical knowledge spectrum.
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Funny how this goes completely against the typical operant conditioning a user undergoes when working with computers. Usually if your software hangs up, you want to touch nothing and let it finish. But in this case it's actually additional user activity that's needed.
It seems perfectly in line with what I generally see. A hang up usually results in some desperately mashed combination of Esc, Space, and Enter, then clicking on absolutely everything, and finally mashing ctrl-alt-del in the hopes of something happening. The let it do its thing and wait crowd has always been on the higher end of the technical knowledge spectrum.