Karen yells at tech support because her computer has a Desktop Tech Support |
- Karen yells at tech support because her computer has a Desktop
- Need a Lamp Expert
- It's Always DNS - SSO edition
| Karen yells at tech support because her computer has a Desktop Posted: 18 Jul 2021 12:05 PM PDT TLDR at bottom.
So I'm reading this over, and I'm genuinely shocked at how well-detailed these notes are. Normally Tier 1 support's notes are nothing but the vaguest description of the issue. I would have expected these notes to read "Personal PC missing icons" and no other information. Now, we don't support personal PCs unless it's an issue specifically related to their ability to establish a VPN connection. But, what the hell, I'll give it a shot. Maybe they accidentally uninstalled the VPN client. That's something I can help with, so I give her a call. She picks up immediately - another pleasant surprise. Unfortunately that's where the pleasant surprises end. Karen is audibly annoyed. I can't figure out what she means by her description of the issue, so I remote to her machine. When I get in, I'm looking at a normal Windows 10 desktop, several icons, wallpaper of a couple of kids. I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I ask her to explain the issue one more time. Karen: I've never seen this screen before. Me: What screen? Karen: This screen we're looking at. What the hell? She's never seen her Desktop before? Me: Okay, can you show me what it normally looks like? She moves her mouse to the bottom-left corner of the screen and clicks the Start button, complaining that she's never had to click on "these little blue squares" before. When she clicks the Start button, the Start menu pops up in a full-screen mode. I'm not familiar with this, but a quick google shows it's just an option for the start menu. No applications seem to be missing. I can type in the Search any application she wants and they're all there. Mystified, I ask for further clarification on the issue. Karen: I've used this computer for three years and never once have I seen this screen [referring to the Desktop]. It ALWAYS shows up like this [referring to the full-screen Start Menu]. The computer asked me to restart for some sort of update yesterday, and after that, it shows up like this. I don't have much experience with Windows 8, but it sounds like she's talking about that, with her applications showing up as tiles of some sort. I do a quick winver (Start -> Run -> Winver -> OK) and she's running Windows 10 Pro 21H1. Unfortunately I've never seen Windows 10 behave this way, so I don't know what setting may have gotten flipped by the update. Me: So I'm not sure what might cause this behavior, but it sounds like all you have to do to get to the more familiar screen is to click the Start button in the corner here. Karen: I don't WANT to click that button, I want it how it was before! Me: I'm not sure what setting may have gotten flipped, but this is how every Windows 10 PC I've ever seen behaves. This is just the Desktop, and all your applications are installed. You can search for anything you need. If you want icons on your Desktop you can put them there like this. [Basically trying to be as helpful as possible, but incredulous that I have to explain something as basic as The Desktop. Normally we have to fight to keep our users using the Desktop for everything, like keeping sensitive data and PHI on it, a major operational no-no.] Karen keeps complaining, getting angrier and angrier. I get why she's frustrated - she's used to it operating one way, it's now operating a different way. What I don't get is why it's so much hassle to click the Start button to get it to how she wants it. But eventually I simply have to explain that our organization simply does not support personal PCs except to help them access our resources. Karen: But I do work on this PC. This is how I work from home. Me: I understand that, but there's nothing wrong with that functionality. Can you access the resources you need to access? Karen: Yes, but…. Me: Then that's as much as I can assist you in. There's nothing to fix that I can support. Even if our organization did support personal machines, there's nothing dysfunctional about this one, it's just not set up the way you prefer it to be. I'm sure there's some setting that will put it back to how you want it to be, I just don't know what it is off the top of my head. Karen: But I just want it back the way it was. Me: I'm not going to be able to help with that. Karen: I'll just take it in on Monday so someone can look at it. Me: They're not going to tell you anything differently. Me: [quickly, anticipating an explosion of temper] That's not to say you shouldn't do it. I would love to be wrong. I would hope you could take it in and they'll be able to show you exactly how to put it back the way it is. I just want you to go in prepared, because our policy is that we don't support personal machines - it's a liability issue - and I expect they'll tell you exactly what I've told you, that there's nothing wrong with it. Karen: …. Me: So, given that information, is there any other questions you might have? I know I haven't been very helpful… Karen: No, you haven't. Well, she's been irritated and not polite, but this is the first time she's been openly rude to me. I've done what I could do, and I've been getting hammered with tickets while on the phone with her, so I'm super done. I devolve into giving monosyllabic answers to her rephrasing of the same questions and complaints, and eventually she gets the hint and lets me go. Later, as I'm relating the saga to some friends, one of them suggests "tablet mode," which I've never heard of, but sounds like it's probably the setting she was looking for. If she had been at all polite, I might have opened the ticket and shot her an email about it, company policy or not. I'm still stunned at how this person, who is a grandparent of those two children on her wallpaper, can possibly not be familiar with The Desktop, a staple of Windows - and most other operating systems - for 35+ years! TLDR: User is confused and angry about the mysterious "Desktop" that an update to Windows forced upon her. Turns out it was likely her computer was set up in "tablet mode", something I'd not been familiar with. Hope you enjoyed. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2021 07:34 PM PDT Him: (In charge of topside security and embarkation/disembarkation overnight) Hello, engineering? There's a portable security light (lamps that plug into sockets) out on the port side. Can you send someone to take a look at it? Me: (In charge of overnight engineering/maintenance on a ship moored to the pier.). Sure, we can do that. Are the ones nearby (I.e. same circuit) on? Him: yeah, it looks like it. Also, the plug is just sitting by the outlet, not sure if something's going on with it. Me:... You mean it's not on because it's not plugged in? Him: Maybe, but I don't know what else could be wrong with it. Can you just send your guy to fix it? Me: Have you tried plugging it in? Him: I don't want to do that, since it could be unsafe. Your electrician will know what to do with it. Me:... Is it tagged out? (Basically, a red tag that says "don't touch this, other maintenance is going on that may not be apparently) Him: (getting angry) No, the cord is just sitting there. Look, I'm not the expert on these things. You guys are. Can you just send so-and-so? Me: Ok, we'll send someone up. Please have payment ready in Frito Lays or Mountain Dew. The light was 20 ft away from him while he's making this call. It's up three flights of stairs and far away from the electrician, who went and plugged it in, solving the problem. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:40 PM PDT I administer a bunch of Moodles for a small tertiary institution in Sydney, Australia. These are currently hosted in M$'s "Blue Cloud", with a VPN connection to the campus. The VPN is handy, because it means we can have locally-hosted services interact with the Moodle server as if it is local, and vice versa. A few weeks ago, we started getting reports of issues logging in to a couple of Moodle instances. These errors were generated from our Single Sign On setup. Initially these reports were irregular, but then we heard through the grapevine that lots of students were experiencing the issue - they just weren't reporting it via our helpdesk. Once we reminded the students that we can't fix errors that we don't know about, and the only way we'll know about issues is if they're reported to the helpdesk, the trickle turned into a flood. We also started to notice an interesting correlation: login errors were happening at times when the VPN had dropped out. The correlation was strong, but we couldn't figure out a causal link. I examined the error messages, and they all seemed to contain the phrase "Could not resolve host: [sso_provider_domain]". Why are we getting DNS errors from SSO when the VPN is down? Then, today as I was digesting my lunch, it occurred to me that I should check the Moodle server's DNS configuration. It turns out that the server gets its DNS config from the Blue Cloud subnet. When I examined the subnet DNS config, I found four "internal" IP addresses listed as DNS servers. "Hmm", I thought, perhaps I should add an "external" DNS server to that list. I added Google's 8.8.8.8 and rebooted the server. No change. I then looked again at the list of "internal" DNS addresses. Two were in the Blue Cloud subnet IP range. They were for two Active Directory/DNS servers that were hosted in Blue Cloud until a few weeks ago, when they were removed as part of our migration away from cloud-hosted servers. So I removed these now-nonexistent DNS servers from the list and rebooted the Moodle server. No more SSO login errors. Happy students. Happy faculty. Happy IT team. So the correlation we noticed did point to the cause, and the reason we hadn't seen lots of issues from the unstable VPN was that the DNS servers in the cloud were covering for the dropouts. Until they didn't exist... Edit: spelling and formatting plus final paragraph. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment