It really was not the right environment for me.

I used to manage developers in an environment like that. In case it helps, I can assure you it was shit for everyone.

We even had an issue much like the one you describe.

In case it amuses you, I took quiet joy in ruthlessly using the root cause analysis as leverage to fix several of the issues. And then I left for more money, better hours and more interesting work.

So at least there was a happy ending for everyone who was me, and everyone who I liked working with enough to recruit to my new firm.

Edit: And I hired away the dev who made a similar mistake for more money, too. It wasn't their fault our environment was built with Kleenex!

the nonprod environment was configured differently in a way that didn't expose the bug,

I hate that so much. So many IT folks treat nonprod config changes like they won't still ruin my weekend. Haha.