We've reached an agreement that before I submit any more testing tickets with the title "test ticket" I will give them a heads up that the ticket I'm submitting is a test ticket. Tech Support |
- We've reached an agreement that before I submit any more testing tickets with the title "test ticket" I will give them a heads up that the ticket I'm submitting is a test ticket.
- Never let managers near the keyboard
- Reboot your computers!
- Spotify, the unlikely culprit
- Cleaning up the system folder
- how hard can remote support be? the answer: very hard
- Why would you even need to talk to me?
| Posted: 03 Sep 2020 04:08 PM PDT Flavor-Text-You-Can-Totally-Skip Our dept. has had its own project in our $TicketSystem for years. This project also connects to $AlertSystem so that on-call engineers get notified of after-hours tickets. Both of these things long predate the creation of a department we'll call $ProblemMonitoring. Recently, in order to Today, I needed to test the $TicketSystem-$AlertSystem integration in our project as we were having a few cases of missed notifications. This requires submitting a test ticket--something that's moderately routine.
Some battles just aren't worth fighting... [link] [comments]  |
| Never let managers near the keyboard Posted: 04 Sep 2020 02:38 AM PDT Ok, going back into ancient history, somewhere around 1989... (Sorry, the background takes a little while) I used to administer several OS/2 servers for departments at a university. For whatever reason, the department decided that C:\ on the server should be shared with read/write access to all users. Yes, there was a directory structure they stored their files in, but generally, things were ok. Until the day a user brought in some shareware software they "needed" to use. After creating whatever report they were working on, they went to print. Being a DOS pc, they had to configure their printer. Knowing the printer was on LPT1: on the server, they figured that's what they needed to set but managed to do that as a "print to file" thing. DOS being DOS and brain-dead (and this being v1.2 of OS/2), the server dutifully created the file. I spent an hour trying to remove the d*mn file without luck. (Enter the rogue manager). It was at that point (as I was talking to the department boss) my manager took the keyboard and said "I know!" and proceeded to issue the command "DEL ." on the root of the C: drive, then reboot! The word "oops" was said, followed by "can you fix that?" For the uninitiated, an OS/2 install was done from floppy disk. All 20 of them. Then the 10 "Corrective Service" disks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2020 07:47 AM PDT I had this comment on r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt and it was suggested I post it here. I work as Tier 2 Desktop Support and I had two users that kept getting locked out Monday. The service desk called me as well as our AD guy for help. I'd unlock their AD account but within 5 minutes they'd be locked out again. For one of the user's who was on a laptop, I went so far as to clear everything from Credential Manager and all of his browsers, but within a few minutes of me unlocking his account he'd be locked out again. The second user was on Citrix, so this shouldn't have been an issue since we don't allow the storing of passwords, but it was the same for them. So after being thorouly confused on why he keeps getting locked out we turned to our AD guy for some help. He was able to determine they were getting locked out from the same machine which was locked in a secure room. The odd thing was the Citrix user hasn't been on that team for a year so shouldn't even have access to the machine. I located the machine easily enough and turned it off. Issue immediately resolved. Okay, so now it's time to see why this was going on. I take it down to staging and boot it back up which takes forever. It's one of our older HP EliteDesks with a spiny drive which we've been phasing out. I log in and open Start to check some things out. Wait, something's wrong. Why does the start menu look like this? Oh my gosh, it's still running 1511! We've been on 1803 for over a year and have even since moved on to 1903. Well, it's old and a few updates behind so my solution is just going to be to kill it and replace it with one of the hundreds of Optiplex 3070s we have sitting in a room that the board decided to purchase (without consulting IT) due to COVID-19 (don't ask). Just for fun I check the logs. Last time powered on was August 19th, not too bad. Wait, does that say 2019? How does a Windows PC not crash in over a year? Why has no one at least restarted this thing when SCCM tells the user to? Well, that explained just about... everything. Updates were behind because it hasn't been rebooted in so long and users were being locked out because it was wakened from sleep and they were still logged in with AD passwords that were way expired. TL;DR: please, for the love of god, restart your machines when Windows asks you to! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2020 09:04 AM PDT Backstory: I am "that" family member who gets all the family tech questions. This is a story about when her phone storage filled up. My Mom has an iPhone XR with 128gb of onboard storage. Mom: OP, my phone is full, can you look at it? I think I have too many photos. (She pays for iCloud) Me: OK I proceed to get the phone and usually, I start by downloading Google Photos, but storage is full. I see that she deleted literally 50% of her apps. Then I do my due diligence and check the storage menu. What do I find? Spotify, taking up 61gb in downloads. Me: Mom, I think I found your problem. Mom: What? Me: Spotify is taking up half of your storage. Mom: *embarrassed laugh* I decide to check Spotify just for kicks. I see a prompt at the top saying "2739 out of 3079 songs downloaded" Me: Mom, you have 3079 songs downloaded. Mom: *more embarrassed laughing* I was deleting family pictures and tearing up! How are you going to fix it? Me: Mom, I have to delete Spotify and reinstall it. Mom: So my songs won't be downloaded anymore? Me: Yes. This time, pick songs that you will actually listen to. Mom: Ok, thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2020 03:45 AM PDT This was back in the mid 2000s when I was working as a tech/sales engineer for mainly ad agencies, printers and so on. Creative and nice people and generally great coffee but usually not especially tech-savvy. One day I got a call from a panicked young lady working for one of our customers. She: My Mac does not start up anymore! Me: Me: OK. did you do anything out of the ordinary while working? She: Nothing! (Oh, if I got a euro for each time I hear that one....) Me: Is there any error message shown? She: Nothing! At that point, I just reached for my bootable firewire disk and started driving to that place. One hour later I got there, we went right to the computer and I started it up. Sure enough: It showed the Mac equivalent of a "no system or disk error". I opened the case, checked the cables (they might have come loose after all) and switched it back on again. Same error. Well, that could mean, that the hard drive was likely shot, but as it didn't sound weird, I thought there might be a good chance for recovering at least some of the data. Enter the firewire disk for booting up the mess and: The disk was detected flawlessly. All data reachable, no err ----wait. what's that? Me: that's strange. somehow the systems folder (like the Windows folder on PCs) is gone. Are you sure you did nothing to the system? She: nothing! well.. except.. I cleaned up the files a bit and there was this folder with a lot of files I didn't know, so I deleted them. Me: like..20.000 files? She: Maaaaybeee. So: She deleted the Operating system from her computer and I had to install everything again, look for the CDs (that was way before the days of cloud downloads), register them, etc. A day and a half later she had a newly installed and updated OSX plus all the applications installed, configured and an invoice for about 1800€. The company paid it in full and appearently considered it a learning experience for her, as she kept worked for that company for a few years after that. #tldr: Customer deleted her own operating system and wondered why the computer did not start up anymore [link] [comments]  |
| how hard can remote support be? the answer: very hard Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:52 AM PDT so we're moving users over to office365 from office2010. this involves moving users over to a new remote desktop farm. users remote on using an I.E link on their desktop. they sign in, then click on an icon. with the new farm, they have a second icon. relatively simple. most users are now migrated, but some are still logging onto the old farm. i contact these users and ask them to start using the new farm by clicking on the second icon. one user says she doesn't have the icon (which i know is untrue as i've tested all of the users) but i give her the benefit of the doubt. and so starts the email exchange. I am [me]. she is [user] [user] - Hi I was speaking to [user2] and she said she has a new icon on her computer however I haven't. If you remember I had to take [user3s] computer home with me not my own as somebody took this during lockdown. Can you please sort out as I am working from home and it is very difficult to try to sort out. thanks [me] - Morning [user]. Can you go to sos.splashtop.com and I'll jump on and have a look [user] - I will do it now is this on the internet [user] - I have gone on internet and typed what you said I don't know if you can see this [user] - Hi [me] I have done onto internet and put in what you said but it is coming up with options do I just leave it for you to get into. Can you let me know when you are going to access this and I will finish what I am doing [me] - Hi [user]– you'll need to follow the instructions on the site for me to be able to log on [user] - Sorry [me] its coming up with options and questions I got through to a live chat person that cannot be right? Can you talk me through this as I have never done this [user] - Do I press splashtop remoter access [me] - please follow the instructions on the site (note:at this point i'd not realised she'd gone to the homepage) [user] - When I go on its got 5 options, Remote Access, Splashtop Remote Desktop, SOS, Remote Access to PC and Remoter Computer support which one !!! [me] - Go to sos.splashtop.com. open the program that downloads. Give me the number that comes up [user] - [splashtop number] (i try the number. it connects me to the old remote session rather than her actual PC. my fault, should have specified) [me] - Thanks, though this is connecting me to the remote session and not your pc where the icons would appear. Can you go to the site on your pc [user] - What site sorry [me] I am having a mare of a morning (narrator - sigh) [me] - Sos.splashtop.com [user] - Its on screen now [me] - That's lovely but you still need to follow the instructions. If you want me to help you, you need to participate in the process [user] - [splashtop number] it is in my downloads folder – I don't know what else its asking me [me] - That code isn't working – did you close the window with the code? What is in your downloads folder? [user] - [splashtop number] [user] - Right the code is open on my computer which has been downloaded from my file it is [splashtop number] [user] - Right I have started again [splashtop number] I have not closed this down x [me] - That works, though you've done it on the remote session again [user] - [me]I will do it fresh on Monday as I have loads to do and this is stressing me out sorry - 24 emails . 24. thank god i'm on a half day [link] [comments]  |
| Why would you even need to talk to me? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:52 AM PDT Cast: SA: System Admin (not a manager, Yours truly) DP: Division President (who think IT costs too much) DM: Divison Manager CFO: My boss Setup: We have multiple ERP systems, and a good bit of integration that brings things together to ERP that runs the company. One of the auxiliary systems (AS1) has billing integrated into ERP, which works fairly well. I have to troubleshoot when they break the rules (the rules they set in the first place), but it works well enough. In July DM asked me to begin integration of AS2 (which is a clone of AS1, but just a little different). It's fairly complex and requires an outside contractor, so "Please get some test data in there and I'll work on it in my free time." (Not a lot of free time - helpdesk is laid off and I'm doing break-fix as well.) It shouldn't be too bad - he said he copied the exact same setup as AS1. I thought it couldn't be too bad. I took one look at it and saw that a round dozen of the linkages were broken - he used different fields for data than AS1. Hours of testing and re-figuring to come. Oh - and he didn't bother with a data dictionary. He knows what's in there. ( But it should work because it's the same.) Fast-forward to the end of August and DP calls a meeting with me, DM, and CFO. They're waiting to bill July because I'm not doing my job. Words were said, and yours truly just sat there. I won't argue with idiots. When asked, I gave exact dates and situations, as well as contents of communication, as I document EVERYTHING with this division. (DP has tried to burn me before.) "What? Did you go live with a system without testing the integration? No project plan, no project management, and no communication with IT or accounting about what you're doing?" The CFO had a good time with that. Not to mention that the July income statement was misstated. (He takes his job very seriously.) Their absolute lack of communication before the beginning didn't play well. At the end of the day, the integration is working now. Accounting is working on cleaning it up and I am babysitting the integration until it's fully automatic. I expect August to be cleaned up by the end of September, and September to be on time. I'm tired of playing this game. Time to look elsewhere. [link] [comments]  |
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