Secret fix every experienced tech knows


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It depends, is fixing the issue at hand more important  vs taking the time with research, diagnose, to find out the real cause. 

With most places, time is money, and if a reboot fixes it, and the issue's not common, or frequently occurring, places don't want to spend the money for that level of troubleshooting. 

 

Not many places will do the engineering level work to remove all bugs and prevent them from happening again or determining who's at fault. 

I suspect Nasa, Military, Military contractors do more of the latter. 

I think there's a fairly obvious difference between troubleshooting someone's home computer or "gadget" as the article says and asking them to reboot to try to fix the issue and debugging an issue in server or in code that most of us are able to understand. I certainly don't think this article was aimed at IT professionals maintaining live servers or developers debugging code. As such I thought it was a little odd that it was even posted here in the first place.

 

Then again, rebooting frequently doesn't disturb any logs or other events you may want to check to determine the actual cause of the issue. There are a lot of times I'd reboot to get the server running again, THEN diagnose what caused the problem. Of course, a competent IT person should be able to determine their best course of action on a per case basis. Like you said, it depends.

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I'm in IT. I almost always suggest rebooting first. 95% of the time it works and they go on their merry way. Saves a lot of hassle! If it keeps recurring or the problem is still around after the restart, then it's time to diagnose, but at least I have a 'clean palette' to work with.

 

I guess I am spoiled. We rarely have any issues at work that require rebooting. I really can't remember the last time we had an issue.

 

I sure don't any problems at home. My wife's iPhone and my Note 2 runs for weeks without rebooting. Our Chromebooks the same. Same for my desktop running Linux. I guess all this rebooting is a Windows thing?

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I guess I am spoiled. We rarely have any issues at work that require rebooting. I really can't remember the last time we had an issue.

 

I sure don't any problems at home. My wife's iPhone and my Note 2 runs for weeks without rebooting. Our Chromebooks the same. Same for my desktop running Linux. I guess all this rebooting is a Windows thing?

Almost definitely a Windows thing. But I don't see us deploying Linux to these thousand or so corporate users any time soon :laugh:

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It sure is a windows thing. The way windows works, it doesn't ever allow you to fully reset everything unless you either:

1) Reboot

2) Talk the user through something that will take longer than a reboot.

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It sure is a windows thing. The way windows works, it doesn't ever allow you to fully reset everything unless you either:

1) Reboot

2) Talk the user through something that will take longer than a reboot.

Depending on the action/update, OS X and GNU/Linux are no different.

 

Windows is a lot better than it used to be.  Remember Windows 98?  If you farted near it, it needed a reboot.

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well i've had all sorts of issues, even a failing server that, if rebooted the array *might* die (and the tech that requested the reboot had it's way ignoring that issue that f0cked up the array) so a reboot, while it can resolve some problems, it's not always the end solution; it can resolve but it's not always the original problem. I prefer i thorough troubleshooting, it can take time but at least you know exactly what happened or what it needs to be done (sometimes a reboot :D).

 

But when you reboot you knew 100% that its a failing array, as you have lost all your data and need to rebuild.. It may not fix the issue, but you are sure of the problem now... If you don't know what the probem is, rebooting will answer questions. If you are in a position where you know you shouldn't reboot, you likely already have the problem figured out.

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Working support for a VERY large international company it still makes me giggle when getting a user to log off an app or rebooting their systems "fixes" their issue miraculously, it's also hilarious to me when step one of some of the fixes we have to perform are reboot and try again, THEN do x. It's gotten to the point that I will generally insist on a reboot before troubleshooting some issues, since that will usually fix the problem 

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Reboot is a quick fix, but most of the time the problem will return. It's better to find the root of the problem and fix that so it doesn't happen again.

 

 

That depends on how long it would take to diagnose the issue versus how long it takes to reboot. If it takes a minute to reboot and the issue only comes around once every couple months then it is not worth the time to find the root cause of the issue. Unless you find yourself sitting on your thumbs all day with nothing to do. Otherwise it's a cost/benefit analysis on how much time it takes you to complete the task versus how much time you'll save in the future. 

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That depends on how long it would take to diagnose the issue versus how long it takes to reboot. If it takes a minute to reboot and the issue only comes around once every couple months then it is not worth the time to find the root cause of the issue. Unless you find yourself sitting on your thumbs all day with nothing to do. Otherwise it's a cost/benefit analysis on how much time it takes you to complete the task versus how much time you'll save in the future. 

Disagree... the amount of time that user will continue to come to you for when the problem returns should also be calculated into the time to troubleshoot vs rebooting. There can also be paperwork or work orders that need to be filled out depending on the problem, which takes time and starts to clutter up your queue. 

 

It's probably also not a good endorsement if they complain about how you haven't fixed their issue for months now.

 

I'd rather take the time to figure out what the deal was then to have them continue to have a problem, especially a disruptive one that prevents them from doing their job.

 

People can't just reboot on the whim whenever we ask them to, especially in the middle of a meeting and their presentation randomly screws up (again) while they're the host of a webinar.

 

The reboot rule is definitely a good rule to go by in a one time pinch, but it for sure shouldn't be the golden rule to a problem where it only comes back one out of twenty times. You're not a good IS admin if you think otherwise, and not only does it make the frustrated user think you don't know how to fix their computer, but their manager and possibly yours as well. I guess I'm fortunate enough to where although I have a busy work load, I'm able to balance issues like this as the user to IS ratio is well proportioned. 

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Windows is a lot better than it used to be.  Remember Windows 98?  If you farted near it, it needed a reboot.

 

Windows 95 would randomly reboot on it's on for me. Those were the days. :)

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Windows 95 would randomly reboot on it's on for me. Those were the days. :)

It wasn't random.  It was predicting your needs :D

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For issues with viruses and other things ...Reboot using live Linux Cd... rename .bak files and other files and replace originals... then also use that one to - remove the files that are causing the system to run slow

.

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While reboots are certainly not a be all, end all, it should be the first thing anyone tries.

 

I know if someone refuses to reboot with an OS problem, I will not help them.  I only ask that they try it initially.

 

Actually, if settings, changes have been applied to the operating system that affect system start-up a reboot may effectively lock out a technician - even something as simple as the Password has been changed and since forgotten on an admin account. Just incase it is better to fully understand the issue at hand, the symptoms, the causes and then decide the best course of action not just 'reboot' regardless.

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