Swallowing exceptions hides errors, making debugging difficult and potentially leaving issues unresolved.
Swallowing exceptions occurs when an exception is caught, but no action is taken, often resulting in silent failures. This practice is problematic because it obscures the true state of the program, leading to undetected bugs and unreliable software. In Java, this typically happens when a catch block is empty or only logs the exception without taking corrective measures. For example, if a `DatabaseConnectionException` is swallowed during order processing, it might result in orders not being stored, but without any indication to developers or users.