"Please delete my department's folder...." Tech Support |
- "Please delete my department's folder...."
- That moment when you learn your mother is a unicorn.
- Router not working suddenly, many days working after last tech visit. Husband is furious, wife is having a good laugh now.
- When I login it tells me I'm not valid!
- Why is my WiFi not working
- Stop the madness
- It's just like a power outage! It shouldn't hurt anything.
- Lies, damned lies, and statistics (a.k.a., even databases need a hint)
- "Windows is up to date"
- I Made a Boo-boo
| "Please delete my department's folder...." Posted: 28 Feb 2019 02:06 PM PST Good afternoon TFTS! Got a short and sweet one for you: Cast - $Me: Network admin/File Permissions admin/Backups Admin; $IM: Idiot manager , not my of my department Ticket comes in: $IM - "Please delete my department's shared folder. I have moved the files inside it to an alternate location, and this is no longer needed." $Me - "Ummm... What? I need to know this alternate location. If this data is no longer stored on the central server, it's no longer being backed up. I need to make sure these files are, in fact, being backed up." $IM - "You mean you don't take individual backups of workstations? That seems.... inefficient." $Me - "No, contrary to popular belief, [link] [comments]  |
| That moment when you learn your mother is a unicorn. Posted: 28 Feb 2019 07:37 AM PST Hello TFTS! I am not sure this qualifies as "tech-support" so mods feel free to remove it if it doesn't. TLDR at the end. Now as you might guess from the title of this post, this story concerns my mother. As we all know, parents in general can have a little trouble with all the new technologies that we young people embrace so easily. As someone in actual IT (network and system engineer), it has fallen on my shoulders to take care of the home tech-support for the family, which include but is not limited to :
However I am lucky in the sense that beside my father, my mother and brother are both knowledgeable in IT, and do not require my help unless they have already tried troubleshooting themselves for a while and still haven't found a solution. They are also sometimes interested in my work and as such I often discuss it with them at the dinner table. One evening, as I am re-telling how awful it was to actually take charge of new client infrastructures with non-commented scripts and missing documentation, my mother surprised me by saying that she always comments her code in excel and documents religiously all her IT work. I was, as you can guess, a bit curious and asked her if she could show me. She agreed. As a bit of of context, my mother works as an externalized financial director in her own uni-personal company that she built herself : As such she uses excel a lot. She showed me a 20 MB excel file. 1 excel file. 20 MB. For anybody working with excel you would understand what monster a 20 MB file is. She told me it wasn't even the biggest one she had put into place (the biggest one being close to a 100MB - and from what I understood could basically do the calculations for a moon rocket trajectory by itself, except, you know, with financial data). A file with macros designed to extract data from clients databases, format it and do all sort of calculations on them and then write all the results neat and tidy. The vbs section of the file (code part) had more than a 100 pages of code. Thousands of lines. But more importantly, I could see green (the color of comments) everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean that more than 30% of the actual written code content was comments explaining what each individual function did and what each page of code was. Even I who had never done vbs code before could actually understand and read her code. I was floored. I also told her how proud I was of her. I always try to look for a unicorn in my users at work, but who could have ever guessed that one would be so close all this time? TLDR;
Quick Edit : My other TFTS Tale
Quick Edit 2 :
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| Posted: 28 Feb 2019 09:54 AM PST Some time back, the client originally had network issues and the husband figured a router reset was needed to clear up their internet issues. Notice I said reset, not reboot or restart. My company had been out there a couple times before years past to configure their setup, along with a wifi extender, mainly for a tv in a garage/lounge for the kids and family. All in all, just a router, POE for wireless internet with the ISP, and a wifi extender, nothing fancy. Note: Client lives a few miles out of town. Call in competitor company to troubleshoot their ongoing issues after the reset of the router. A second router was installed, as the inhouse tv, maybe 50 feet away from the main router, could not connect to the first router. The competitor also configured the Wifi on both routers, and not to the specs the client had originally for the SSIDs and passwords. The tech kept the default SSIDs and passwords, but changed them ever so slightly. I have no clue how long they worked with two routers. I was called on site to troubleshoot wifi on an aging (Windows Vista) laptop. Before anyone jumps, the client is fully aware, she just uses it for sewing machine, and has lost the install media. Between discovering their conflicting network and the laptop's wireless card is basically dead, the client approved fixing their wifi/network setup. After everything was said and done, the internet is faster, and I made sure the house TV was able to connect to the main router with no issues, and the extender was playing nice. I left them a printed sheet of what their wifi and router settings are outside of default. Mainly the SSIDs (main and guest), Passwords, and Admin Panel login details. Nothing else changed outside of that. A weekend passes and a couple days, we get a call from the husband who is very, very, upset. Nothing has internet, and they can't figure out what changes I had done. As I was entirely confused, and approval from my boss, I made a rush trip out. The husband had left for an appointment, and I worked with the wife. They have not had any issues until the night before. I check the wifi listing, and seen only the wifi extender, no others. Is the router powered on I wondered, worst case the router bit the dust. Found both the router and computer powered off, will not turn on, yet the backup battery unit is powered on. But wait, there's a power strip on the floor, that isn't lit up. Turn it on, and the router lit up, and the computer is powering up. Shortly after I confirmed all is working and all is well. The wife and I was guessing as to how the powerstrip was hit, as feet wouldn't have been able to hit it, and there are no children around (or visiting the last few days). Then the wife realized she ran the Roomba the night before. [link] [comments]  |
| When I login it tells me I'm not valid! Posted: 28 Feb 2019 11:51 AM PST Here we go again...
At this point I should mention that this particular user is one of a few hundred volunteers among our members (labour union) who takes care of things are their workplace. They all have accounts and e-mail addresses and 2/3 of them have never logged in. We have their userIDs and passwords in a separate database because we get 4-5 requests per day for a password from this group. So, I query $user for come information, verify that they are indeed themselves and not an imposter, and look up the record.
Enter their userID and password, and I'm in just fine...
I then proceed to give the user the proper password and walk them through the process of logging in and receiving their report. TL;DR: Don't know my password, so I'll just leave it blank then get angry when I can't login. Edit: a word [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Feb 2019 01:19 PM PST I work for a Small MSP servicing around 100+ clients with 5-20 employees and our largest client being 50+ employees. I am generally regarded as the "printer admin" at the office. Mainly because I don't stop until the printer is working (minus hardware issues). I'm Level 1-2 HelpDesk/Onsite Tech. We just take care of our clients. This is a story about one of those clients. Characters: $Me – self explanatory $FD – Doctor at client (works on feet and doesn't understand tech but has x amount of degrees, blah, blah, blah bullsh*t) $FP – Practice that $FD owns $FM - $FP's office manager (awesome lady and loves us) $Brains - Cubicle mate who can retain any all information somehow. I don't know how he does it, but he puts all of us other techs to shame. 2 of us have College Degrees (not that this means anything really) $Salty – Our office admin/manager/coworker/onsitetech. We all carry a bunch of titles, but he is the longest running employee at our MSP and a generally great guy. We butt heads a lot due to our personalities. Get along great though It's a Tuesday masquerading as a Monday, what's new. We are all in the office and working on client issue. I'm on the phone with $Money (From my Rough Night saga) dealing with an issue for them and a call comes in. Its $FP and they are having major WiFi issues and need a tech onsite to look at what is going on. Background on $FP and $FD. We have never dealt directly with $FD as she is always busy and puts a lot on $FM. $FM adores us and always trusts what we say and tries to convince $FD to go with our recommendations. Not that she always does them. All the other employees at $FP are awesome and lovely to work with. They have a bunch of crappy WallyWorld budget laptops except for the ones we have replaced. I finish up with $Money's issues and get off the phone
Gets me out of the office for a bit. It will be nice to stretch my legs. I head over to $FP and meet with $FM. She tells me that the $fruitpads they use are connected but they get booted off at random times during the middle of the day and connect reconnect unless they power cycle the device. She tells me this has been going on for about 3 weeks. We have done no upgrades or made no changes in that timeframe and she cannot think of anything that has changed. So, I grab and $fruitpad and do some testing. Connected perfectly fine and nothing is wrong. I can use their applications and they connect to the server and the internet perfectly fine. I check the 3 AP's and they are all on and connections are strong under each of them. WiFi is working and nothing is going on. I start checking for updates on the $fruitpad and BAM WiFi goes out. WTH!!!! I try and try and try but cannot get connected to the WiFi for about 5 minutes and it starts working again. Just out of the blue. I decide to go check the network closet. The network closet is in $FD's office. It's a large walk-in closet that has been turned into the network/server room. Think an 12x10 room with a 2-post rack on one side and closet made stuff on the back wall and adjacent wall. I have to get 2 keys to get in there. 1 for $FD's office and 1 for the network closet. $FD unlocks her office and the network closet is open. WTH!?!?!? I walk in and there has, of course, been some changes in here. Queue me looking at rather large industrial sized microwave and a Bluetooth surround sound system. Microwave looks/smells like it has been recently used. I'm standing there in a dark closet with blinking light, in disbelief. The closet has been turned into a playroom/mini kitchen. There are toys and a bean bag chair with a TV and an XBOX with a cable going into one of the switches (Damn us for using a flat network with them) along with a laptop plugged into the switches. More random stuff on the shelves. I walk out of the closet and get $FM. She comes in and I ask her what is going on.
I take this time to do some research on my laptop and sent a few emails. In walks $FM and $FD. We sit and:
$FM and $FD are stunned. I pack my things and start to head out.
One of my emails was to $Bossman informing him and he replied immediately with the engagement letter and informed me what to do. Apparently $FD has been hit with HIPAA fines in the past and once I mentioned HIPAA, she shit herself (possibly literally). We came back onsite a few days later and fixed the network with some VLAN's and gave her son his own 2 ports to plug his xbox and laptop into. Unfortunately, they are no longer a client of ours. That is for another time. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Feb 2019 03:13 PM PST I decided to reach way back in my career when I first started dealing with users. At the beginning of my career I was a technical trainer for a large training company. I taught Novell, Citrix, Microsft NT Server, etc. I hardly ever taught any end user applications unless someone called in sick or something like that. Cast of Characters It's a fabulous Wednesday morning. I don't have a class this week so I am in the middle of setting up a lab for Exchange. An entire blissful week of learning something new for me. Or so I thought.
Alarm bells start going off in my head. I see my blissful day of learning a new toy slipping from my grasp
Someone stab me in the eye now. I get to spend the day teaching people what a mouse is and other fantastic things. Yeah me. It's a triple shot of caffeine needed for this day. I walk in the classroom and there are about ten people seated in front of the computers.
Two hands go up. A young kid about 20 and someone at the front of the class. The rest of the group looks frankly terrified. This is going to be a long day.
Can't believe that just came out of my mouth. Sounds nauseating even to me. An older lady sitting next to YK tentatively raises her hand.
I start going through my spiel. Talking about the start button. Then BEEP BEEP BEEP Looking around to see which student laid something on their keyboard. And it stops. I continue on explaining the difference between the buttons on the mouse and that the mouse isn't to be used like a magic wand BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP I track the sound to where YK and RL are sitting. I walk back to take a look.
He is frantically gesturing to RL and his face is bright red.
She slides back her chair and the beeping stops. She slides back in and it immediately starts again. She looks down. Looks back up at me and laughs.
This is going to be a long day. [link] [comments]  |
| It's just like a power outage! It shouldn't hurt anything. Posted: 01 Mar 2019 03:41 AM PST The cast in this story: $Me - IT guy who does everything except web development; $FG - Former IT guy who still thinks he should be in charge for some things So, my boss made it clear to me that $FG is definitely NOT in charge and that I shouldn't ask him for permission for anything, since I'm in charge. We're only about 30 people at my company, and $FG works there for a lot longer than me. You can see where this is going. One beautiful afternoon, I was at his office to check on something with the network.
A couple weeks later
Let's see when he comes whining that a harddrive failed or something bad happened. Stay tuned for my next story: How the bosses assistant opened the door for people to deface our website! (Before I started working there) [link] [comments]  |
| Lies, damned lies, and statistics (a.k.a., even databases need a hint) Posted: 28 Feb 2019 03:29 PM PST (This may be a bit long winded, but I hope the technically minded appreciate the explanation). So I work for a large software company, companies run our product on a variety of operating systems and database types. On a particular area of the product I work on, I get called in on more than others. I work on a product that is generally set up/run by IT, and isn't always business facing (depending on the functions set up). Based on that and individual customers, it varies on how critical it is considered. As part of the initial setup of the application, data consisting of several million rows needs to be imported to the application (and therefore, the underlying database). Usually this process is a bit dull but not hard; you visit a web page, you upload a ZIP file, let it churn for an hour and do something else/get lunch/whatever and come back as it processes, and then do the next file. A highly regulated customer calls and says that they're in peril for having their changes properly logged/audited under the law because the prerequisite setup is horrendously slow - that step that I mentioned that should happen in the past hour? It's taking over a week, and there's a bunch more of those ZIPs to go. The Obvious Answer So first thing I do is log onto the system and check their OS/DB platform- AIX/POWER8 on Oracle DB. I check the operating system monitoring and the system is not even breaking a sweat (CPU, RAM, disk read/write amounts and access time, etc.) - plenty of hardware. The application is responding very fast too. I immediately suspect a peculiarity of Oracle itself. Oracle makes a fine database that can be a real workhorse. It is also heavily dependent on optimizer statistics. In simple terms: Optimizer statistics are a summary on what's roughly in an Oracle table/structure that tells the database engine how it should approach a problem. Imagine this: You are asked to find the word steak out of ten words printed on an index card. You'd probably just read all the words, right? Or if you were asked to find the word steak on a list of 500 words printed A-Z. You'd flip though A, B, C... until you got to S. Then you'd reach each word. Or if you were asked to find the article for steak in an encyclopedia with a million articles. You'd go to the appendix, find cow, and then find steak as a subcategory of that. Now most databases handle this transparently, but the Oracle DB is particularly sensitive to this - the Cost Based Optimizer (CBO) of the Oracle database engine takes the statistics its given at its word. If you tell it there's a cup of water to scoop up, it'll use an eight ounce cup. If you tell it that there's a million cups, it'll bring the right approach to the job - but it assumes what it is being told is correct. The way to fix this isn't hard; it's a standard command, with little performance overhead, immediate huge performance gains, and transparent to any end-user of the application. Most companies run it daily or so. The assumptions Well, this works under most circumstances but not all. Imagine you have to load a million+ records in a table. If you are blind at the word of statistics and you get told that a book is empty, imagine that you had a strategy on how to read/write to it is (e.g. I should just read each word) and then you were too "dumb" to realize that it was a mistake (e.g. the database table actually contains 800,000 records). You are at the mercy of someone else (another process) doing its job correctly. Imagine being told that you had to get rid of a single shovel full of snow and finding a four acre parking lot with 8 feet of snow. You brought a shovel when you could have brought a giant machine. The customer ran a process to update the statistics, which went through our third party library. The cron job technically runs, but throws tons of errors that it isn't running correctly. Ultimately, it takes a few hours of troubleshooting, but there were steps performed in the non-production environment that were not performed in the productive environment (scripts run to finalize the database upgrade after the main upgrade process was done). We ultimately review back among the documentation we have (and the log files that are absent as a way of telling what wasn't done...) and correct the issue. The aftermath The customer goes from 20 records an hour to 100 records per second plus. There's still some other work to be done but the bottleneck is gone. tl;dr No matter how smart you or the software is, if you can't configure the software to appropriately inform itself (statistics on database tables so it works correctly), you can have a 500hp engine and move a foot in an hour [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Feb 2019 10:02 AM PST I took a random ticket today with a keyboard issue. Ticket states: "Good morning. HELP! EXPERIENCING KEYBOARD LAG ONLY IN MICROSOFT PROGRAMS." $me- are you using a wireless keyboard? $user- no $me- can you run windows update real quick? $user- I'm up to date, what are we going to do about this. $me- ok let's start a screen share session After some time------ $me- searches check for updates (win 10), and checks for updates. $me- well this update is for 1803, and this one is for the wireless keyboard you are using. $user after restart- wow this is working well. You really know what your doing. Where were these updates? $$me- in windows update.... I'm going to close the ticket, have a good day. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Feb 2019 09:22 AM PST Cross post from /r/networking, but it probably fits here as well. Long post, TL;DR at the bottom. I'm not exactly sure what happened in my brain this week, but everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, and everything was because of stressful former weeks, too much work and bad planning. I had earlier (a couple of months ago) designed up a new proposal for an upgrade for a customer. My boss was a bit eager to try out a couple of new solutions for this customer and not just go for a standard Cisco setup on the layer 2 segment. As my company and our customers widely use Fortigates as their primary firewalls, we started checking out other Hardware products besides FortiWLC, and landed on Fortiswitches. Fortinets Security Fabric structure is pretty cool, and we went for a couple of 248's. At first we ordered up a FW-cluster and a 248 to test at the customer site. This was working quite well, and the customer ordered up two additional 248's to replace their stone-age 2950, some old HP-switches and an Allied Telesis stack. The week before, all my planning went to shit, as I was side-tracked by more pressing issues. I wrote up a quick plan, but forgot essentials as creating a change, getting this change accepted in CAB and preparing some more details around a roll-back plan and overall plan for the migration to new equipment, as well as much needed essential research on Fortiswitches. Migration day came, and I prepared to possible configurations; one where I set aside dedicated Virtual Switch Link interfaces for the Fortiswitches directly to the Fortigate, and one where we daisy-chained the fortiswitches. The first topology worked fine for all the equipment, but you can't view the switches on the Fortigates, which was one my main goals to make configurations easier. I rolled back and went for a daisy-chained topology. All Switches showed up in the Fortigate management view, and I started configuring up all necessary trunk-ports and access-ports. The last two cables remained, and the job would be done within the agreed upon billable time. The last two cables however, where attached to another old HP-switch, which was a dedicated AP and WLC switch. This switch hadn't had any LAG config, but two cables where connected to the Allied Telesis stack nonetheless, One port was of course in blocking-state and the other one was forwarding. As I was interested in getting the job done, I didn't give this much thought, and hooked the cables up to the Fortiswitches. Big mistake. Apparently STP isn't enabled on Fortiswitches out of the box, however, everything seemed to be working fine and I got the good ol' pat on the back and thanks.One and a half hour later, our monitoring guys are calling frantically, the WHOLE site is done, nothing is working as it should, but from our device-database, we're able to reach the servers at the site, but devices on the same VLAN's aren't able to reach each other. Luckily, but alas, to no help at resolving the issue - I was able to reach the Fortigates over the Loopback interface, and lo and behold; topology and duplicate OSPF router ID's everywhere. I quickly disabled all interfaces I knew where connected to other bridges, and set the Fortiswitch directly connected to the Fortigate as Root bridge, and the topology changes stopped, however, this didn't help at all. And devices on same VLANs or had policies in place, where unable to reach each other. After 16 hours of troubleshooting, and completely messing up the whole environment, and using my poor colleagues time on troubleshooting with me; we rolled back everything to the old equipment, and everything, except for the poor vcenter, came up and worked again. This sucked so bad, as well as I'm stuck with the worst conscience for my colleagues who also had to help get everything up. I'm now in a re-planning phase, and setting up an identical lab to the proposed solution for the customer, to really cover all aspects and doing everything from scratch. A hard lesson was learned this week. TL;DR This week I learned Fortiswitches come with spanning tree disabled out of the box. Fun times where had. [link] [comments]  |
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