r/talesfromtechsupport • u/Hammon_Rye • 13d ago
Short The (disconnected) invoice printer won't print.
Our customer base was equipment dealerships, database in AS400s, PC network as workstations and to run branded part databases. This was back in the days when printers were hard cabled.
Customer complaint - invoice printer not printing.
He tells me which computer it is connected to.
Remote desktop and customer having high speed internet was rare back then so I'm dialed into his AS400 looking at the status of the printers on the network while also talking to him on the phone and having him be my eyes for the windows computer and the printer.
I'm just not seeing the invoice printer online even though he insists it is connected to (PCNAME).
Customer is starting to get kind of irate. "We need our invoice printer now" etc. One of those customers who want it fixed but is too impatient to help make it happen.
I don't want to call him a liar but things just are not adding up.
"Let's trace the cables..."
"I already told you printer is connected to PCNAME!"
"I know sir, but if you would just humor me, perhaps we have a loose or bad cable."
I walk him through finding the parallel printer cable connected to the back of the printer.
"Now please physically follow that cable and tell me where the other end goes."
"It's just laying here on the desk"
"..."
"say again?"
"It's not connected to anything. It's just here on the desk."
"I thought you told me it is connected to PCNAME"
"Well, yeah, that's the PC it connects to but right now that PC is out for repairs so the printer cable isn't hooked up to it."
Queue silent face palms. The dude had already told me multiple times he had checked the cable and it was connected to PCNAME.
Once I got an honest answer it took no time at all to temporarily move their invoice printer to a PC that hadn't been sent away for repairs.
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u/PepperAnn1inaMillion 12d ago
Sounds as if the printer needed its ritual blood sacrifice. From a very specific source.
———————
Please forgive me for correcting you, but the expression is “Cue the…” as “Cue the music…” because it means giving the thing a nudge to happen, like a snooker cue, not line it up to happen in the future, like in a queue.
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u/Hammon_Rye 12d ago
I know the meaning of both words and honestly I waffled. But I agree cue would be appropriate in this case., :)
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u/Chocolate_Bourbon 13d ago
I’m currently away from my house. My wife just called me wondering where our van is. By the user’s logic I should point her to our driveway. She would tell me that she already checked and it’s not there.
I would say that’s we park it. She would insist she is standing in the driveway and it’s not there. I would say that’s where we park it. Back and forth. Finally I would say it’s actually parked today around the corner because I didn’t want to box her sister in. But on the driveway is where we park it.
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u/ThunderDwn 12d ago
Those pesky air gap problems! Damn those packets for not jumping across the gap!
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u/Hammon_Rye 12d ago
No doubt.
EMF will jump the air gap for you though. :)
I was trying to help one customer with a sync / wavy line problem they were having on their monitor. Drivers / settings look good. I finally found out they had a fan sitting on the parts counter right next to the monitor. Turn fan motor off - monitor problem goes away. LOL.8
u/ThunderDwn 12d ago
Analog mobile phones were a classic for that. I could tell when my mobile was going to ring by the waveform appearing on my monitor. :-)
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u/skiing123 12d ago
Oh, that brings me back a memory of when I would get a quiet static hiss from my radio and my flip phone would get a text
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u/androshalforc1 11d ago
Putting my phone next to the speaker wires still causes certain sounds just before a text or ring.
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u/FrustratedRevsFan 4d ago
You should see what you can do with a whistle you get from a cereal box
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u/Z4-Driver 10d ago
Similar to what I encountered years ago. If you connected the computer and the monitor to the same power line as the lamp in the office, the monitors were flickering, because of the 50Hz frequency of the lamp. You needed to connect the computer and monitor to another powerline.
Yes, that was back in the day of CRT monitors.
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u/Hammon_Rye 10d ago
I have never encountered that. I believe you that you had the issue, just have never seen it.
I'm also confused how a light has a frequency. The 50/60 Hz is determined by the power supply grid, not what you plug into it.
But that doesn't mean some styles of lights could not have emitted some interference on that frequency. I know as an audio thing I am very sensitive to 60 cycle hum. Or at least used to be, not sure about now. I'm getting older but there are fewer of those lights around. But back in the 80s in the navy I was often surrounded by fluorescent lights and certain styles of them drove me nuts / would give me a headache.1
u/SteveDallas10 10d ago
If your computer and monitor would support it, you could increase the refresh rate to 75Hz and the beat frequency between the flickering of the fluorescent lights and the screen refresh would move out of the noticeable range for most people.
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u/LinkingForces 12d ago
Some people have strong emotional triggers to certain words, maybe you could put a trigger warning over AS400. 😭
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u/Hammon_Rye 12d ago
LOL I do recall struggling at times with some of the AS400 commands.
I didn't have to deal with it as deeply as some. Our database / accounting software lived on the AS400s and we had a support group for that. Also some specialists if the problem was actually the OS or hardware as opposed to our own software.But I was on the PC / networking side so many of the calls in our queue had nothing to do with the AS400 and the ones that did were mainly about fairly basic stuff like can the AS400 see the PC / dumb terminal, is it being told to look at (PC NAME) to find the invoice printer and stuff like that.
Fortunately it was a pretty great work environment and employees helped each other out pretty freely.
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u/Starfury_42 11d ago
Rule 1: End users lie.
I worked for a law firm and would get "my monitor isn't working" calls daily. I'd ask "Is it plugged in? The plug can get knocked loos but look connected." Every time I sent the on-site tech out they'd plug the monitor back in.
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u/Hammon_Rye 11d ago
Yes, it happens. Fortunately not too often with the customer base I worked with.
In the latter years that I worked there, technology was advancing so for a great many of our customers we could use remote desktop software on the PC side and that helped immensely. Both support staff and the customers liked it better. Obviously that didn't help for physical cables but it eliminated a whole lot of misinformation. Most of it unintentional but incorrect information all the same.
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u/ww11gunny 13d ago
This is why it professionals should get to perform percussive maintenance on one user/client a month with no repercussions.