{"id":6193,"date":"2015-03-20T17:39:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T17:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/?p=6193"},"modified":"2021-04-09T17:54:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T16:54:28","slug":"never-forget-top-3-troubleshooting-questions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/de\/blog\/never-forget-top-3-troubleshooting-questions-2","title":{"rendered":"Never forget the top 3 IT troubleshooting questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in my days as an MSP I got a call from the office asking me to make a \u201cquick stop\u201d to fix a customer\u2019s email problem. I was told this shouldn\u2019t take more than 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Sure\u2026 we\u2019ve all heard that before!<\/i><\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s the end of the day and a Friday. You know how that is. I\u2019m tired and my brain is fried. But this\u00a0should<\/i>\u00a0be easy. Sometimes it\u2019s good to end your day with an easy problem.<\/p>\n

I pull up to the \u201coffice\u201d that is really an old house that\u2019s been remodeled. It\u2019s a hot August day, and as I step up to the porch, I kid you not, about 30 spiders dropped down like tiny ninjas repelling off some ancient temple.<\/p>\n

Security system?<\/p>\n

Kinda creepy actually; that should have been my first clue to turn around and leave.<\/p>\n

I gave the spiders a leery glance and walked past them. After all, I am IT, fearless are we! Or something like that. More like,\u00a0I am IT<\/i>,\u00a0spiders remind me of that scene in Lord of the Rings with Bilbo\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

What’s broken<\/strong>
\nI find the user at her computer, looking a bit lost without email.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what seems to be the problem today?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy email is broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ah\u2026 so I\u2019ve heard.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cOk, let\u2019s have a look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have someone I need to contact today!\u201d She explains, obviously very upset.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have their phone number? You could call them,\u201d I suggest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh\u2026 I hadn\u2019t thought of that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m amazed at how much we have become dependent on email for communication. I fight the temptation to say, \u201cBack in my day\u2026\u201d and turn rather to the problem at hand.<\/p>\n

I have a look while she makes her call. Sure enough, she was unable to send or receive email. The very first thing I did was the classic\u00a0reboot fix.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cCould not reconnect all network drives\u2026Click here to check the status of your network drives\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

My fried brain began to work. It looks like they just moved to this location, lots of boxes around \u2026hmmm\u2026<\/i>\u00a0better check the basics.<\/p>\n

I look behind the Hello Kitty waste basket at her computer on the floor. Yup, patch cable was not plugged into the wall jack.<\/p>\n

Ah\u2026 that could be a problem.<\/p>\n

What no network<\/strong>
\nI attempted to plug it in, \u201cUm\u2026 you don\u2019t have a network drop?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, a place to plug your computer into the network\u2026 where this cable (I hold up the end for a visual) can connect. It looks like a phone jack, but a little bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at her cell phone, \u201ca phone charger?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh boy, generation gap getting bigger here.<\/p>\n

Back in my day\u2026.<\/i><\/p>\n

I look down at\u00a0Hello Kitty<\/i>\u00a0for moral support, \u201cNo, it\u2019s a socket to plug this wire into. The drop would lead to a switch or router?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Kitty, help me out here!<\/i><\/p>\n

Blank Kitty stare back meaning, you\u2019re on your own David.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

My fried brain is quickly building the scenario. End users don\u2019t need to know IT, if they did, we wouldn\u2019t have a job. Let\u2019s see what I can find out from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid your internet service company connect you to the Internet? Have they been here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes, they were working in the other room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you show me?\u201d<\/p>\n

We headed down the box littered hallway to an empty room.<\/p>\n

Where’s the router?<\/strong>
\nAlmost empty actually; I see a lone router sitting unplugged on top of a moving box on the floor. Three foot patch cables protruded from the back of it like the Alien in predator.<\/p>\n

A coax cable hung from the wall, the disconnected cable modem, still in a box, sat uselessly on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, all that has to be plugged in, configured to work together. Then we have to run Cat5 to your office, make a drop, and then plug your computer in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then my email will work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that should fix you up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, is that why I can\u2019t print to the office printer too?<\/p>\n

I took a moment, blinked twice, \u201cYes, that\u2019s correct\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes turned into a two-day project running cat5, punching down a patch panel and drops, to connect all five of the workstations and the three network printers. I ran cable up and around and through one of the hottest attics I have ever been in in my life.<\/p>\n

When I was running the lines, I did not see any spiders. But still felt many times like they were all over my body.\u00a0Bilbo\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Once we completed the project, Hello Kitty was back in business, sending emails once again.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the point of this story, David?<\/i><\/p>\n

The moral of this story\u2026<\/strong>
\nWhen diagnosing a problem it is sometimes easy to miss the obvious IT troubleshooting steps in an effort to resolve too quickly. Remember the top three questions for any troubleshooting scenario.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. When did it last work correctly?<\/li>\n
  2. When did you first notice the problem?<\/li>\n
  3. What happened in between the time it was working and now?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    End users are good at what they do, they are not expected to be good at what we do. Although this case was a bit extreme (but unfortunately, true!) it illustrates a basic point. What may seem obvious to us, it not always the case for the end users in our care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It can be easy to forget the basics of IT troubleshooting. Read this post to make sure you have your fundamentals in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","topic-msp-business"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTop IT Troubleshooting Questions - N-able<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It can be easy to forget the basics of IT troubleshooting. 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