Most embarassing troubleshooting mistake?

[Crashless]

Wow, I just spent a weekend cussing at my Sage box, and I thought I'd vent and bit and share my story.

I recently got a PVR500 to add to my system. Setting up the hardware, wasn't the hard part. It turns out the hard part is getting the system to control the cable boxes. At least, that was the hardest part for me.

I got a stereo splitter, and remote emmiters to allow my USBUIRT to use zone control to change channels on the STBs, put the emitters on the STBs, and NEVER could get the boxes to control properly again.

The channels kept missing, either the wrong channel, or not changing at all. I messed with IR delays, repeat counts, re-training codes, new IR profiles EVERYTHING! I was especially pissed off because everything worked fine before I tried this. All that I was supposed to have to do is duplicate the profile that worked fine with one STB, and put the Z1/Z2 before the commands.

What was most frustrating, is that the zones were working fine. The correct emitter would blink (so glad I got visual IR emitters), and some of the numbers would register, but not all. And it was totally random, sometimes the #1 would work, sometimes it wouldn't.

Then finally, when on the verge of throwing the STBs out the window, I got a flashlight out to see where the IR reciever was on the STBs. You see, the front is heavily tinted, but there is a lable that says "remote". So I just placed the emitter right on the lable, and didn't think about it again. "It must be right there" I thought to myself. Why else would it be there in the first place?

Well, the flashlight proved otherwise. There was a small hole in the backplate to the tinting an inch from the label. I moved the emitter to that, reset to all the defaults, and haven't had a problem since.

So anyways, I thought I'd share this adventure with you all, and see what kind of stories you all have, just so I can feel better about myself.

Let's have it. What's your most embarassing oversight when troubleshooting? I'll give a cheers smiley to the one with the saddest story.

[korben_dallas]

Not really SageTV related, but:

I purchased a second SATA hard drive for the purpose of setting up a mirror (raid 1) for boot. I read through the manual and discovered that I could just pop in the 2nd drive, create the raid set, and the raid controller would hot copy my first drive onto the new drive and the mirror would be established.

So I installed the drive, booted up into raid bios and created the raid set, then let Windows start. Once in XP, I started the raid controller application and told it to go. Disk activity was furious for about 60 minutes and then it said it was done and I needed to reboot. So I reboot, and..

Nothing. XP won't start. Boot sector error. Hmmm. Try again, same thing. So I unplug the second drive and reboot. Same error. What in the ???

So I go into the raid bios, and low and behold.. I had created a striped set (raid 0) not a mirror.

5 years worth of family & friends digital photos gone. A number of ripped DVDs gone. Several gig worth of mp3's gone.

So in the process of trying to fault tolerance my data, a simple (and terrible) oversight on my part caused ALL of my data to be lost.. irreplaceable data. To add injury to insult, my DVD burner was just sitting there, quietly asking me why I hadn't done a backup.

The moral of this story is: ALWAYS do a backup before making system changes.

I build PC's for a living, manage networks, network backups, run web and email servers. I am still so embarrassed about this incident, that you guys are the first people I've ever told about it.

[Opus4]

Well, let's see... I've probably done worse, but hooking up the case power switch backwards once for a newly-built PC sticks in my mind. Luckily, the UPS cut the power as soon as I tried turning it on.

My favorite from when I managed a county govt's computer system was when I got a call about a printer that wasn't working, and they quickly pointed out that they had checked to make sure it was plugged in. Once I took a look at the thing, I had to point out that while the printer was indeed plugged in, the extension cord it was plugged into had to be plugged into a wall socket. It wasn't very embarassing for me, but it probably was for someone else.

- Andy

[Crazedz]

Oh god where to start....

Lets see put single memory stick into dual channel slot and didn't notice it for six months all the while having problems causeing a sage restart every couple days.

Put a memory stick in backwards (don't ask how i managed that one) and started up the system frying the stick.

Had a old modem touching up against my sound card while rearanging the cards started up the system and fried the sound card.

Resizing my old maxstor drive in partition magic and having it sit their forever thought my system froze freaked out cause i had a ton of data on the drive so i rebooted and ended up with my data partition reporting back as an unkown drive, Thank god i found a disk file recovery program i was able to recover the files i needed even after wiping and repartitioning the drive. Turned out the system hadn't froze and partition magic was resizing the drive but something about the drive kept it from properly reporting it's progress. Korben a disk file recovery program might have worked for your situation as well since the data would still be on the drive. I had found a free one online which is what i used.

Uhm what else....

Oh yeah had an old geforce 4 mx card in my system and had gotten a geforce fx 5200 ultra that was bad (fan wouldn't work and their was a lot of them at that time like that some were fixable via bios flash others wern't) downloaded the bios and flash program as an floppy image. Didn't have a floppy in the system i was testing the fx in so i burned the floppy image to a bootable cd went out and flashed the card it didn't work so i sent it back and got a better one. Forgot i had left the floppy in my system and during a reboot the floppy booted up and flashed my geforce 4 mx to a 5200ultra which became unusable. Kicked myself severly put in another video card went online found a replacement bios (not the manufacturers bios which was chaintech but another one from leadtech) setup an auto boot flash on the floppy and put the geforce 4 back in and started up the pc let it flash the card and rebooted and it worked again. Still have that card and it still has the leadtech bios and does work but i have to use coolbits on it whenever i reinstall the system the card is now in to lower the memory and core clock settings as the leadtech bios sets the card to higher memory and core clock settings than the card was meant to handle otherwise it works fine.

I did contact chaintech trying to get them to send me the proper bios but they wouldn't do it insisting i rma the card to them which i was unwilling to do as i was still useing it so after a while i just let it go as it was working ok otherwise.

Theirs a bit more but i can't think of them now.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by Crazedz

Korben a disk file recovery program might have worked for your situation as well since the data would still be on the drive. I had found a free one online which is what i used.

4 months later, a bios revision came out for my raid controller specifically fixing that issue. I suppose I could have dealt with tech support and sent them both drives, but their's no guarantee data improperly striped over 2 drives can be recovered. Still, it was my fault for not paying attention to the raid set being created, as that issue only existed for striped sets and not mirror sets.

[Menehune]

I once spent 15 minutes trying to track down why my newly built PC wouldn't boot (swapping ram, vid card, CPU, etc) and in the process of swapping out the PSU, discovered the power cord not plugged in.
I now have a PSU tester and one of the first things I check is if the PSU is delivering power to the connector.

[shodge]

OK,

I'll chime in here. I've been troubleshooting a problem with my Sage server box for the past 2+ months. The problem is that the network connection drops on a repeating basis 1 per hour. If Sage is running serving to a client over the net - no loss of connection. All other types of data flow from the server gets interrupted once an hour.

After these symptions, I ASSumed Sage was causing my problem. I've tried everything from complete uninstall / reinstall, upgrade to 2.2, upgrade Java, and even some pathes and registry settings listed on the net. All with no success.

Last week I decided to get VOIP phone service. Because of that I decided to upgrade my DLINK wireless router. I bought a LinkSYS WRT54GS which offers QOS for my VOIP connection.

I installed the new router and guess what? It was the source of my server drop outs. Have had no isssues since. I never even thought about the router causing the issue. Pretty silly of me.... But at least all is working now...

-Stan

[reboot_this]

well.....

I once fell asleep on my riding lawnmower, causing me to plow a 48 inch path through my fiance's flower bed and 2 other neighbor's yards as well, I finally came to a stop when I hit the neighbor's concrete statue

thank the lord the statue wasn't a REAL child

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

well.....

I once fell asleep on my riding lawnmower, causing me to plow a 48 inch path through my fiance's flower bed and 2 other neighbor's yards as well, I finally came to a stop when I hit the neighbor's concrete statue

thank the lord the statue wasn't a REAL child

I think we have a winner.

These are some great stories though. It's nice to know there are some other intelligent people out there that make un-intelligent oversights.

[mbrown3]

Any time people who don't know what they are talking about say "reboot" because they don't know anything else to try, and you tell them how stupid they are for "reboot" being their only solution to every problem, and then rebooting actually fixes the problem.

[reboot_this]

Originally Posted by mbrown3

Any time people who don't know what they are talking about say "reboot" because they don't know anything else to try, and you tell them how stupid they are for "reboot" being their only solution to every problem, and then rebooting actually fixes the problem.

Gosh I'm not sure how to absorb that

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

Gosh I'm not sure how to absorb that

LOL

[steingra]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

well.....

I once fell asleep on my riding lawnmower, causing me to plow a 48 inch path through my fiance's flower bed and 2 other neighbor's yards as well, I finally came to a stop when I hit the neighbor's concrete statue

thank the lord the statue wasn't a REAL child

I am still laughing out loud about this!! MANNN what were you doing the night before oooh gosh that is too funny.

Ohhh man that reminds me of a friend of mine from a long time ago. He told me his name was Stiggy-Passout (last name was Stigner) well he had recently purchased a nice new white van (this was in the 70's so not a mini van) and was driving home from a party in the blinding snow. He was 19 years old keep in mind. Well he didnt realize how tired he was ...and next thing you know....whoops he was upside down sliding down the road in his van. Gee he didnt see that huge snow bank he plowed into WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING....

So after the van flips over one final time, its back on its wheels. He comes to a stop and then begins to freak out. All he could think of is OMG what are my parents gonna do when they see what I did to my new van.

A minute later he puts on his sunglasses (its early AM...pitch dark) but he no longer had a windsheld, and all the blinding snow was coming in the front of the van. So he grabs the shades and starts driving down the road with a blizzard coming in his face with no windshield...and finds a payphone and calls a friend. He then proceeds to *hide* the van at a friends house until he can think up a good excuse. MANN did he get in trouble.

Keep in mind this is the same person who ended up landing his Cessna airplane on Interstate I88 by Naperville IL (by chicago) for an emergency landing... because he was still a student, and was flying *outside* the pre-designated student area. AND THEN THE *OIL* light came on. He and his friend in the plane thought they were dead meat. So they freaked out and proceeded to make an emergency landing on I88. As the story goes, I think they got the heck out of there immediately after landing the plane. On foot. And then told the authorities some story about why it all happened and what he was doing outside the zone.

Oh well...figured this might make someone laugh. I know he made me laugh hard when he told me all these stories.

Oh yeah and then there was the time when he almost burned his house down...do you see a pattern here. He fell asleep while cooking french fries in one of those Big Daddy deep friers or whatever they were called. Next thing you know ...he wakes up with a smoke filled condo, and his kitchen on fire. He runs outside and grabs the hose...and sticks it inside the door to attempt to put out the flames.

Well remember this is a *grease fire* ...sooooooo guess what happens when the water hits the Fry Daddy.....POOOOOOF even bigger flames.....

ahhh man I cant believe the place didnt get toasted completely....he lived in a nearby hotel for like 3 or 4 months while the insurance company paid to have it repaired....

:-O

[src666]

Some background: I've been configuring/building computers and developing software for more than 20 years. I've always been the "go to" guy wherever I work when it comes to technical issues. Everything from building servers to wiring buildings to configuring firewalls to developing commercial software - I've done it all.

A couple of years ago, I was building a new PC (for home). I bought components from many different sites, but I got the power supply from a local shop that a friend (with a similar, though shorter, background) recommended. Of course, the power supply didn't work. I ragged my friend pretty hard because everything else worked (using another power supply to test), and the one thing I bought on his say-so didn't. We drove out to take the power supply back to the shop, and they tested it.

It didn't work.

Then they looked at it.

The voltage switch on the back was set to 220. I never checked it.

Needless to say, I got more than a little ribbing over that one for more than a year.

Now if you want to hear about customer goofs, I have a ton of those, too. Like coming in to work and finding a keyboard with a note that says "My cat threw up on the keyboard. I put it in the dishwasher, but it still doesn't work. Please fix it."

[mightyt]

OK ... late 80's ... Corp America ... The days of DOS, Novell and the original HP LaserJet! So, I get a call to replace a floppy drive on a PS/2 Mod 80. Can you say Microchannel?

Anyway, I dropped by his cube during lunch not to impede his productivity. I figure simple job, yes?! Well, I must have been hungry and in a hurry ... I shut that puppy down, replaced the drive and booted up again just fine. IBM’s BIOS didn’t squawk at all … So, dropped a floppy disk in the drive to test ... Typed A:\ then Enter and just about that time ... well I noticed an interesting smell that seemed to be getting stronger ... Hmmm ... seemed like rubber and it may have been close by ... well ... I looked down and noticed my floppy drive ribbon cable was literally having a red hot melt down as smoke began to rise from the tower!

I hit the power switch in a split second and being an open cube environment looked around to see if anyone was running down the hallway with a fire extinguisher. Nope! So I yanked the drive (slightly burning my fingers quickly pulling the deformed cable) and skedaddled ...

Since then I have NEVER forgotten two things ... To always check for Pin 1 ... or how stupid I felt ...

Of course this was little less embarrassing than hearing of one of my peers clipping the wrong resistor when upgrading memory on a Mac SE having to then replace the motherboard!!

Hey this feels like a burden has been lifted ... Now I wish I hadn't told that guy I was sent the wrong parts!

T.

[steingra]

One time I was trying to get an external *modem* working, tested, etc so I could use it one of my servers to dial into the internet.

I had too many power cords, and modems in the *pile of stuff*, and thought I had the right ones matched up. I plugged in the power cord, turned on modem, and started pounding out modem commands to it.

My wife happened to be in my office, hovering around, and said, HEYYYY why are there *spider webs* coming out of the modem. I said HUH??? What are you talking about....

Then at same time, I smelled that terrible scent of something burning!!!!!!!!!!!

I quickly looked over and sure enough there was a small veil of smoke rising from the back of the modem....ahhhhhhhhhh Crapppp I said and quickly unplugged it. Of course it was too late. Modem was toast. Melted some circuits pretty bad.

Lesson learned: if at all possible mark your power cords/transformers so you know which one goes with which device. And check power ratings if possible on both the input and output sides

I havent ever done that again.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by steingra

My wife happened to be in my office, hovering around, and said, HEYYYY why are there *spider webs* coming out of the modem. I said HUH??? What are you talking about....

Then at same time, I smelled that terrible scent of something burning!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh NO!! Not the "secret smoke"??!! Never let out the secret smoke, bad things always happen when it escapes it's confinement!!

[Kanati]

I had my Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop fry itself on me... Dell just decided it was best to replace it so they shipped me out a new system. Upon which I took it out of it's box and got all kinds of angry because the brushed aluminum case was scratched all to hell on top... So I called my salesperson and tossed a fit and told them that it was unacceptable and that they'd best send me another one ASAP.

About a half hour later I was still looking at it angrily and noticed that there was a tiny little piece of the cover coming off in the corner. Another thing to bitch about next time I talked to our salesperson. And then... I... ummm... peeled the clear plastic coating off the top of the perfectly pristine case.

DAMMIT! I then had to suck it up and call the salesperson back and tell her I was a total idiot and to cancel the newest order because the one they sent was perfectly fine. Oops.

[Menehune]

I just remembered a power supply related problem like steingra's. I guess I suppressed the memory

I received a wireless intercom system like the ones they use at drive-thrus. Base station with a number of body packs. The packs have a charger unit that the rechargable batteries sat in overnight. I assumed (without checking) that the voltages were the same and connected one of the wall warts to the charger, the other to the transmitter. The batteries were charging fine so I turned on the base- *BANG* and magic smoke escapes the case.
WTF?
I double check the base-no polarity or voltage indication on the case. Check the charger-no polarity or voltage requirement on the case. Dig out the manuals (who reads those? ) and checks.

Turns out the base uses a DC psu, the charger-an AC transformer. I had them connected to the wrong units and the bang was the power input filter capacitors exploding. Cursed the manufacturer for a poor design for leaving out the blocking diode, not labeling the cases or the transformer plug ends, and replaced the filter caps. Re-activated the units, worked fine- no more smoke and they are still working today.

[mdmint]

Lots of funny stuff in this thread. Funny as in since I've worked in the computer hardware field a couple decades I relate to much of it. Too many to recall my dumbest moment! Little things like when replacing a motherboard that has a bad IO port do you really need to plug in the cpu fan? (fortunately that mobo had cpu thermal protection and auto shutdown before frying )

The worst and most embarrassing I can recall wasn't a mistake. And it wasn't on one of my systems. Worse. One of a clients live production servers. Should have been a no-brainer in and out in a couple minutes service call. Simple failed hotswap HD in a 4 drive RAID5 array. I'd replaced hundreds of HDs in identical situations. One glance at the Server to easily identify the failed HD by amber light indication. No brainer. Even was thorough and verified within controller software in OS. Unbox the replacement HD, slide out the failed HD, slide in the replacement, and watch for the two light light show on the replacement HD which I've watched start hundreds of times. One light should first come up green as the RAID controller recognizes the new HD, then the 2nd light come up green and start flashing as rebuild automatically starts. First light comes up green, then the second light comes up flashes green once and then goes amber (indicating failed HD.) That's not the bad part, HDs have been known to have out of box failures. The terrible heart sinking came as the indicator light went amber on the replacement HD simultanesouly ALL the other HDs attached to the controller went amber too! RAID array dead, toast. Mucho hardware later and tried every trick in the book, my book and multiple support calls to try and recover the array. Turns out the HD backplane was the culprit but never could recover the data. Fortunately good backup practices in place and as the sun came up on the no-brainer in and out service call that turned into an all nighter their server was back in production for the next days business needs.

Never had it happen before or since. Was not a good feeling to say the least watching their array instantly die. Fortunately their IT rep I was working with was experienced and didn't point fingers or blame understanding that's just the way Murphy works sometimes. And he like I KNOW computer gremlins exist!

My favorite "dumb customer" was over 20 years ago. A client called saying her monitor or video card was bad. I attempted to go threw some basic troubleshooting over the phone but she got abusive saying things like "I know how to plug in and turn on a monitor" etc. and literally shouting demanding someone come onsite immediately. I handed the phone to our service manager mid tirade. He explained rates etc. for within 2hr reponse and she was insistent she needed someone onsite NOW! Nice guy that he was the manager dispatched me. Oh great. Well I walked in, confirmed the computer appeared powered up and the monitor power cord was indeed plugged into a live socket and pulled the power knob on the monitor. Yes, that old mono crt had a power knob that pulled to turn on and turned to adj brightness, clockwise to brighten. Yup, it pulled on and power light indication showed on but no display. Then I turned the knob clockwise and watched as the display got brighter and brighter... and billed her handsomely... and she said nothing, and I said nothing but of course but was laughing riotously inside!

Almost as funny as when I once asked a client to bring in a copy of a disk she came in later and handed me a photocopy of the disk...