I didn't touch a thing – just some cables and a monitor – and my computer broke | Hacker News Reader

I didn't touch a thing – just some cables and a monitor – and my computer broke

theregister.com

64 pointsLorenDB59 comments

A guy i worked with called me over to try to help him figure out why his apple wireless mouse wasn’t working. I replace the batteries, restarted bluetooth, restarted the computer - i’d spent quite a bit of time working thru my mental checklist when the guy just started moving the mouse furiously, as if he expected that would re-animate it, and the cursor. It didn’t. But out of the corner of my eye i noticed the cursor moving on a screen two desks away, a desk whose occupant was out to lunch. I asked the inevitable question and the guy admitted that his mouse had stopped working, figured the batteries had run out (they had) and he was in a hurry so he grabbed somebody else’s mouse instead. To this day i don't know whether i’m more flabbergasted that he omitted to mention this when he first called me over, or that he thought the act of placing a mouse in front of his computer was all it took for the pair to communicate.

Whether or not intentially, the client is almost always lying to you.

I've seen the same wrong machine interface happen at checkout lanes with the handheld scanners (you'd think they'da kept them corded to their base station?).

>>Whether or not intentially, the client is almost always lying to you

There's a TV drama called House. It's ostensibly a medical drama with the titular Dr House having to diagnose people who provide incomplete information.

It took me 3 episodes to realise its actually a show about IT support (but who would watch that right?)

His catch phrase was "everyone lies" - and the first rule of IT support is that you should never believe a word they say.

These days remote desktoping almost takes the fun out of it. I now last about 2 minutes before demanding TeamViewer (or whatever.) The days of spending 45 mins on the phone listening to someone not tell me about the big prominent error message on their screen are over.

So next time you're watching House remember, this is an IT support allegory.

It is funny that my first rule for handling client's complaint is "It is (almost) always user's fault". And that was backed by several years of experiences as a programmer and IT Support for my institutions.

> It took me 3 episodes to realise its actually a show about IT support (but who would watch that right?)

That's been my dream TV show for years

I have fond memories of watching Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, and Kevin Rose (of later digg fame) on The Screen Savers and Call For Help on the old ZDTV, then TechTV before it merged with G4. So many amazing hosts and shows got their start on that network, and many of them continue on their own shows/podcasts on YouTube and elsewhere, especially on the TWiT.tv video podcast network that Leo started. I met Leo once in SF at an impromptu meetup he announced on Twitter in the early 2010s, and he was the nicest person ever. Truly a larger than life personality and career, and you should check out all their shows if you're into IT on TV type content. They have like 10+ current active shows, including the namesake This Week in Tech and Security Now.

The closest to a show about IT support is Ask The Tech Guys, which is live in ~1.5 hours from now, and goes for 3 hours, and they have a Zoom link you can call in on @ call.twit.tv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechTV

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screen_Savers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWiT.tv

https://twit.tv/

https://www.youtube.com/ThisWeekinTech

https://twit.tv/shows/ask-the-tech-guys

https://www.youtube.com/TechGuyLabs

I'll never forget watching Patrick accidentally break a brand-new ~$1-2K AMD 64-bit processor iirc live on TV while Leo watched in like 2002 due to misalignment or improperly mounting the heatsink. They were experts but they still make mistakes like the rest of us, and they took it in stride along with some good-natured mockery. It was the epitome of r/techsupportgore schadenfreude.

If instead you wanted a drama about IT support, I don't know of one - the closest would probably be a tie between the equally fantastic Mr Robot and Halt and Catch Fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(TV_series...

The closest thing I know to a show about IT support would probably be the British sitcom The IT Crowd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd

To be frank if swapping is a possibe problem in a place with more than two periferals add a label that ties it to a machine.

or that he thought the act of placing a mouse in front of his computer was all it took for the pair to communicate.

If his mental model of "wireless" is "IR remote control", that makes perfect sense. Some other RF remote controls work by proximity-only too.

And to be fair, that's how a Bluetooth mouse should work.

Have you really thought of the security implications of automatic unprompted pairing by proximity?

Once upon a time, in a life far far before now, I installed fancy cutting edge voip phones in every office of a computer science dept of a university, including the office of the dean. The dean turned to me and asked if I could setup the phone in such a way that he could connect it through his laptop. “Sure” I say and enabled internet connection sharing on his Ethernet adapter. It worked great in a demo in his office on Friday. However on Monday he stormed into my office, threw the phone on my desk and said this didn’t work at home. I looked puzzled, “but it worked on Friday”. I set it up again and it worked and returned the setup to him. The next day he says it just doesn’t work, so I ask for specific details. He said, “when I close my laptop lid the phone just disconnects”. I swear I looked at him like he had 10 heads. This is the dean of the comp sci department and he doesn’t understand that packet switching cannot occur if the device is off. And not for nothing, but I explained the setup to him.

today one of my pet peeves are people who cannot report issues. And I still experience this today while working with other distinguished engineers. I recently spent 2 months trying to figure out how to update running binaries in windows as part of an automatic update mechanism based on a request from an engineer. I spent the first week clearly delineating the problem with flowcharts demos etc. It wasn’t until I had almost completed the massive undertaking (windows blocks binaries from updating itself due to the way golang defers locking) when the engineer suddenly changed his request to only updating the dependent binaries and not the program itself. I had to rage quit that meeting because it reminded me of learning sendmail milters. Extremely steep technical curve that is obsoleted in a matter of months

I have to ask, did it have to be the same binary? My workaround to this was to have another binary do the updating.

Thats the smart way to do it anyway. Bootloader style. Really generic binary that never needs touching download an update for the actual program, and then on the rare occation that the updater does need to be touched use the actual program to update the updater

In the end the request was exactly this. The tool is the actual program updating the third party tool which required the update, but the engineer originally described the overarching tool with the problem lacking updates. I had to build a new updater to update the updater which had lots of problems in and of itself

The computer is still clearly on when the laptop lid closes - why should they know that networking doesn't work when the computer is on but the lid is closed?

> (windows blocks binaries from updating itself due to the way golang defers locking)

Huh? Windows prevents overwriting/deleting/etc of currently-running programs, what does Go have to do with it?

The Register's article already mentions this, but I want to say it again: as evidenced by the comments section, many HN readers have their own stories of frustrating user support and similar occurrences. If you do, please consider sending them in to The Register so they can keep publishing these stories for us. Thanks :)

I wish I remembered more. I worked for 6 months as Charter tech support for the southeast in the early years of home PCs and the internet, and used to keep my family howling with stories.

Sadly I don't remember much, other than how much I hate the entire state of West Virginia based on that experience. Such nasty people. Sorry for anyone who lives there, but I formed a hard stereotype at that place.

On the other end of the spectrum, the people in Louisiana were so easy going. There was some hurricane that destroyed the office in Slidell. People would call about internet being out, I'd tell them the hurricane killed everything and it may be months, and they were just fine with that and would tell me all the other stuff they'd do in the meantime.

My definition of simple in "Make it Simple and Simpler" changes as I age and experience more end users problems.

I also think we still have a very long way to go in both hardware and software.

The largest unknown is what even IS simple?

Here's a story from more than 25 years ago. A user couldn't print a document and calls local support. After they try several things remotely to no avail, the support person comes to the user's desk. Turns out there was a popup window asking the user to put paper in the printer and press ok to retry. How they missed this obvious thing (it was even a MODAL window) is a mystery.

My guess is that people run on autopilot most of the time. They rely on feedback to orient themselves down the decision tree. But a computer only have a screen (and maybe a speaker) which is already very busy. That’s why people like their phone and the ipad. Because everything else require lots of training to understand and use properly.

> "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

~ Douglas Adams

I don't think we're making progress at all. My theory is that software is made simple enough for a typical 20's-ish person who's already familiar with that kind of thing. But less capable people are still left out just as they were in the 80's, 90's, 00's, etc.

In the 90's, it was hard to figure out how to connect a VCR to a TV. Today, it's hard to figure out how to connect a Chromecast to a phone. The mental difficulty is not less at all.

Reminds me of the stories on The Daily WTF [0], one of the treasures of the internet.

[0] https://thedailywtf.com/

I wish it were easier to browse "everything except for Error'd". DAE love the stories but not the compilations?

When I handle support problems like this where unplugged cables are likely, I make the user triple check everything is plugged in and bet a coffee on it. I've got it a couple times and I feel it makes people actually check their cables!

Not sure if this holds true any more in the day and age of laptops, but back when I was working in tech support it was the cables 9/10 times.

In an environment where you can't trust them (phone support), you can tell them there might be dust on the connectors and ask them to unplug it and plug it back in again. Only when they go to do that, they realize it was never plugged in and they don't even have to admit they were lying.

I like the bet-a-coffee idea.

I used to tell them that what they should do is unplug the cable, and plug it back in again but the other way round -- in other words, with the ends reversed. From end A in port 1 and end B in port 2, to A/2 + B/1.

This, of course, forced them to check both ends and in the process made them ensure it was the same cable.

I made up some BS about corrosion patterns on the connectors to justify it, but it worked often enough to keep using it. Sir Terry Pratchett might have called it "headology".

I don’t know if it was an urban legend but my father told me of a user who called support because they could not find the “any” key.

That joke was floating around on the Internet 20 years ago.

It was on the Simpsons 29 years ago[0], I'm sure it's older than that.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Size_Homer

It has its own wikipedia page [0].

[0]: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Any_key

Wasn’t that on a Simpsons episode in the 90’s?

After more 20 years I still remember a guy that told me "hey! something is wrong! instead of my password I just see asterisks!" when I was training users.

Try explaining to a non-technical user that sudo is in fact registering their password as they type

Trainings are a wholy different cup of tea. I do highly technical trainings, that people pay a lot [1] to attend, and sometimes I really can't help some participants. No, you can't run docker containers on your phone. Laptop is required, it was on the website and stated in the email you received two weeks ago. Or: No you see "file not found" means you need to run this command from another directory. Yes, you type "cd" to go there. No, the script won't work without Python installed, we covered this on a slide two hours ago. Wait how did you solve the last four exercises which used Python too? Oh, this is a work computer and you don't have admin rights to install anything? Right, your admin is sleeping now because of timezone differences. Uhh let's try to find a portable installer.

Meanwhile, the second half of the room finished everything, and that one guy way ahead works though an exercise I didn't even cover so far. But I just smile and try to help, because I'm a professional.

(sorry for venting)

[1] but not to me.

> No, you can't run docker containers on your phone.

Respectfully: The hell I can't!

- Sent from my daily (and exclusive) carry, a Pinephone Pro

hunter2

This is what happens when your IT department isn't run by a Bastard Operator from Hell

When I studied Biomedical Engineering, one our professor loved to always throw around a figure about how 70% of calls about potentially faulty equipment in hospitals is due to someone inadvertently pulling the machine’s plug.

My favorite help desk call - user calls in to complain the monitor isn't working. Start doing the usual troubleshooting and ask them to verify the cable is connected to the computer. User complains the computer is under the desk and that they can't see under the desk because the lights are out - because the power is out. [...] I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't live it.

The only cables you can mess up are barrel power supplies..

I don’t think you’re being imaginative enough.

People break USB ports all of the time, and ruin DisplayPort ports because they’re a locking connector.

Also, USB-C. The combination of video, power and data transfer that any laptop supports is up to the manufacturer, so it’ll fit but will it do what you need?

> ruin DisplayPort ports because they’re a locking connector.

This is not obvious. Display port's UI is like modern UIs: one cannot tell if the protrusion of the connector can be pressed or not. Also the force necessary is quiet high.

It's doubly not obvious because not all Display Port connectors are locking.

For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CY3W7PG3

Especially when it is slightly recessed in the case so you can’t get your fingers in to press the release.

I've had (admittedly cheap) connectors flat-out refuse to unlock, leaving me sweating because I don't want to damage the much-more-valuable equipment they connect to. No more AmazonBasics cables for me.

I’m not sure if you meant to say “can’t mess up.”

If that’s what you meant, are they center positive or negative? What’s the voltage? What’s the outer diameter? What’s the inner diameter? What current is required?

A known barrel jack for a known device is simple. Have a device and need to replace a power supply? It gets complicated.

As you mentioned a couple of things can go wrong with barrel jacks, which is my point. With let’s say display cables it either connects or not.

I see you've never bent a VGA pin.

I've seen a couple of monitors fried because someone tried to power them with a DC power supply that had the right barrel jack but wrong voltage.

I once plugged a USB type B connector into an external hard drive blind (it was dark) and was rewarded with a zap and a dead hard drive. The connector went in the wrong way without any particular force - either the jack or the connector must have been a bit looser than standard.

The drive was fine once I took it out of the enclosure, fortunately.

I did that with the 4 pin Molex connector in a drive in the '80s. That normally takes a tremendous amount of force, but the connector on the drive side gad the most pliable plastic I've every seen on a connector.

The drive was loaned to us for testing by a disk controller company that had hired us to write drivers for their new controller, and they had received the disk on loan from IBM.

It was a 1 gig drive at a time when 200 MB was the norm for a big personal computer disk and not yet on the market. At that stage only a select few outside of IBM had been loaned these drives for testing.

I was pretty freaked out. I assumed that I'd be in a lot of trouble for destroying the drive. I told the person who had loaned us the drive what happened and he told me that he'd fried two of these drives the same way!

He'd found out from his contact at IBM that IBM was losing about 10% of the drives from the early production runs due to their own technicians plugging power in backwards when testing the drives as they came off the line. The contact also said that IBM had already revised the parts list to switch to a Molex connector whose plastic was firm enough to end this problem.

On an early version of the MacBook Air the headphone jack was next to a USB port. In the dark I tried to plugin a pair of headphones and managed to put the headphone connector into the USB port. I didn’t push hard, just so some electrical connection happened. The kernel immediately crashed. I talked about it with a friend who is a tech consultant and he confirmed that he had managed that too.

Early in my career — and in my teens — I was doing web design for local businesses. It was the late 90s/early 2000s, and the Internet was taking off, and people wanted websites. I have plenty of stories from this era, but today, I'd like to talk about Demmer.

(That's not his name, as I want to preserve anonymity, but it's close.)

Demmer was an old man, retired, and excited by what the Internet could do for him and his organization. They were, he told me, building a state-of-the-art retirement center. And what a retirement center it was. It offered every luxury. Five-star food. Movie theater. Staff tending to your every needs. A better living environment than you'd ever have had pre-retirement. They had Dot Com billionaires investing. It was HUGE!

(Best I could tell, this never existed in any form, sadly. Demmer was the sole representative, and I began to suspect this was more wishful thinking than anything.)

Demmer's ask was simple: Take a document he wrote and put it up on a website. Easy. Shouldn't take long. I billed him up-front for the full cost — a couple of hours of work.

A couple hours that took a month. To send a document. With daily, angry voicemails.

I began to call this lovely interaction the "Daily Demmer."

He'd send an e-mail with the document, and the e-mail would be blank. I'd reply, and he'd respond via voicemail explaining I must have done something wrong. I'd respond with a voicemail of my own, asking what he tried, and that I'd help. He'd get defensive, say he knows how to e-mail! He e-mails all the time!

His voicemails graduated to long, expletive-laden rants within a week.

Finally, I got him to walk me through his attachment process.

Step 1: Open the document. Step 2: Compose an e-mail to me. Step 3: Place the document on one side of the screen, the e-mail on the other. Step 4: Hit send.

"Ah-ha. Well, I'm sure it made sense to him. I can set him straight," I stupidly thought.

I walked him through attaching the document. Find this button, click it. Find your file. Click Attach. He nods along over the phone. "Uh huh. Okay. Got it." Good, good, this is working. "I'm hitting Send."

I received an empty e-mail.

Turns out, he had dug in his heels. He knew e-mail! He sent plenty of e-mails with documents to all the investors. And he did so with the same steps: Place both on the screen, hit Send. I'm just a kid, what do I know?

Rinse and repeat for weeks.

Eventually he drove to town and just angrily handed me a printout.

I got the website up within a couple hours.

He canceled his hosting within a month. I never heard from him again.

> I'm just a kid, what do I know?

It's very funny that we have graduated from "You're just a kid what could you know about computers?" To "Every kid is automatically a computer genius because they grew up with smartphones"

And both mentalities are equally mistaken.

> Easy. Shouldn't take long. I billed him up-front for the full cost — a couple of hours of work.

As a 10 year+ veteran remote and onsite tech support admin, I have learned from experience to never trust my own or anyone else's estimates or instincts regarding the ease or alacrity of a job sight-unseen. It's Murphy's law in action. Never, ever take payment upfront, and bill by the hour for support unless you have an ongoing support contract with a known-good client. You can always itemize the bill and prorate/discount the bill post-fix if you think it shouldn't cost as much, and you'll avoid a lot of headaches and heartaches as well as reduce strain on business relations.

If you accept payment upfront pre-fix, you're in the buyer's remorse business, and your clients' frustrations with their problems will spontaneously become frustrations with you before you even get the chance to fix the root cause, because subconsciously in their minds, they paid good money once for the original failure to launch, and now, no thanks to you, they're somehow on the hook for your failure to immediately if not retroactively pull a rabbit out of a hat over the phone or in person.

I repeat - never accept payment upfront - instead, offer free diagnosis/estimates/quotes.

Ask me how I know.

This was a hard-learned lesson for young me.

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