I can't tell you the number of times I've solved a problem by ignoring it, briefly.
No I don't mean you need to pretend it's not there until it goes away, that doesn't work, and if you're at your place of employment, usually you'll go away before it does. What I mean is that in most cases staring at a problem for endless hours won't help anything either.
On a multi-person team, if you've stared at an issue for more than an hour, and you're not making any progress and there are no leads left to follow, then run it past someone else. Sometimes you can use the rubber duck debugging I mentioned before, other times just ask someone for help, but sometimes the answer is to stop thinking about it.
Walk away, get lunch. If it's late, call it a night and start fresh in the morning. If you're missing a minor detail, then staring at it for hours on end will just reinforce the fact that you're not seeing it, it won't help you find it. You need a fresh perspective, or at least a break to think about something else then start over again.
I promise a well timed break can save hours of work sometimes!
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