#tech-support — Public Fediverse posts

Ah, the pinnacle of AI brilliance: stuck in an infinite loop of "please enable JavaScript and cookies" 🙄. Who knew the real productivity barrier was a browser setting?! 🍪🔧 Clearly, our future robot overlords need a tech support hotline. 📞🤖
https://blog.sshh.io/p/how-ai-productivity-fails #AIbrilliance #InfiniteLoop #BrowserIssues #TechSupport #RobotOverlords #ProductivityHurdles #HackerNews #ngated

Last Thursday I took this out of a box and got it online for one of my clients. Calling it a “supercomputer” seems a little over the top, but it is nonetheless a sweet machine.

#TechSupport #AI

Final #TechSupport victory after two sessions at the South Burlington library. On Tuesday I met with a patron who complained of getting notifications about expired McAffee subscription, and it was expired, but the notifications were scams coming from Microsoft Edge due to some malware. My go-to fix for this is to rename the Edge data directory in %LocalAppData%, which also required booting to safe mode. Luckily they had a family member with a Norton AV plan that would provide a subscription. That plus some prolonged Google password recovery and we are done. More work than a single 40 minute appointment could resolve. #Vermont #Libraries

When we download a YouTube video with yt-dlp or something similar does it affect the stats of the video? Does it get an additional "view" for example?

#tech #techsupport

Just had a seriously genuine interaction with someone in the support team at Seagate, who helped me with a warranty claim for a hard drive. Sounded like the investigation on their end was pretty painful which of course would happen from time to time with these big hardware companies.

"Sure. You are most welcome. Thank you so much. I want to let you know that you are the most understanding customer I have had the pleasure of assisting today."

Didn't think that a chat support window would deliver the biggest smile on my face today, but here we are.

Also god damn what's the average support interaction like for them if I just had to be patient in order to get a compliment like that?

#TechSupport #Wholesome

Fun free #TechSupport session at the South Burlington library today...
1. Used Gmail Message Recovery Tool to restore 26000 accidentally deleted email messages. 🤸‍♂️
2. Managing photos in macOS Photos app
3. Upgrading iOS 17 to 18
4. iCloud sync problems on iOS
5. A patron responded to a Facebook ad and got 5 crapware Android "cleaner" apps installed, plus an email app, pop-up ads galore. DELETE
6. How to stop unwanted recurring payments to ActBlue
#Libraries

Hey fedizens :FediverseSymbol:

We had a bit of a mare yesterday, as wife's brand new laptop (an Acer Aspire A16-61M (NX.JP0EK.005)), which she got as a gift from family during recent sales, decided to suddenly crash in an awful manner after only a month of usage.

The laptop crashed in Windows (Win 11 Home, 25H2 with all AI tools removed) with an error message of some kind, rebooted, and then reported "no bootable device".

We spent a huge chunk of the day researching the issue, trying various supposed fixes, and failing miserably :Sighing_Face:

Our failure led to us having a neurospicy meltdown in the evening 😔 As such, we're asking for your advice on attempting to fix it ASAP for wife :PleadingFace:

Wife has raised a ticket with Acer in case they're able to help, but we're hoping folks here will suggest something other than wiping the drive and reinstalling an OS.

Things we tried included:

• Verifying that the SSD itself still showed in the UEFI/BIOS.
• Resetting the UEFI to default.
  • We cannot change to the boot mode to Legacy then back to UEFI, as some generic-advice-giving folks have suggested in Acer forums and elsewhere.
• Using Windows PE to access the command line tools, as well as variants based on it, like:
  • Aomei Partition Assistant's bootable media.
  • Hiren's BootCD PE x64 (v1.0.8).
• Using Windows 11 installation media (from their latest media creation tool) to access the troubleshooting repair tools.

The efforts thus far have only changed the error from not "no bootable device" to immediate blue screen messages showing a failure a load and presenting options (function key options like startup repair etc.) which all fail to work.

The main C: partition appears to be borked, and shows as unallocated.

We've tried to recover the partitions and the data, as well as clone the drive sector by sector, without success. As far as we know, Bitlocker hadn't been enabled, but one attempt to recover files under a tool within Hiren's BootCD PE asked for a pin when trying to recover files from the lost partition showing as unallocated space, so it may well be hindering any recovery efforts.

Due to life struggles, neither wife nor us had had the time to set up any backup services yet, and whilst most things are cloud saved and can be recovered, some files and all the custom settings and tools would be lost if we cannot recover the drive fully 😔

Apologies in advance if we advise we've tried something already, and please be kind and detailed with any comments or queries.

For context, we've 20+ years of troubleshooting Windows and hardware issues, but we're neither a programmer nor IT specialist of any kind, and have never had an IT-type job.

Any thoughtful ideas, suggestions, and recommendations will be most welcome 🩷

#AskFedi #TechSupport #Windows #Windows11 #GenuinelyAsking #NoReplyGuysPlease #troubleshooting #DataRecovery #DriveRecovery #Acer #NoBootableDevice

Update: After further troubleshooting, the issue appears to be that some crash broke the drive's partition table, and software couldn't recover all the partitions because BitLocker was enabled by default 🤦‍♀️ Fortunately wife was using her Microsoft account and the recovery key auto-synced to her account. Now just trying to find a bit of software other than DiskGenius (which is bleeping expensive) which can accept the BitLocker recovery key and rebuild the drive without having to back it up and restore it.

Further update: After a few days of working on this whenever we could around other things, and learning more about WindowsPE, WindowsRE, device encryption being enabled by default, bcdedit, manage-bcd, repair-bcd, bcdboot, various shite recovery tools that everybody claims are great but aren't at all, we finally ended up getting the device back into a semi-working state and told it to hold off on updates for the next 20 years. In the meantime, wife can use laptop again at least and we can fix the many other bugs again manually, via an in-place install, or properly backing up, nuking everything, and starting from scratch. On the plus side, we discovered that Rufus (the formatting tool) has options to download and customise Windows installations, including automatic disabling device encryption. Also had to play around a little with Linux Mint. We could get used to that, but we'd to find equivalents for WIndows mods and functions we're used to. Oh, and having to decrypt an encrypted unallocated (raw) partition, even where you have the recovery key, is one of the most cursed problems we've ever come across! Windows will allow you to assign a drive letter without formatting, but you can only decrypt it to elsewhere then: not in-place. Most recovery tools simply lack the simple ability to let you enter a recovery key or password and restore it in place.

can a home VPN allow me to "simulate" LAN connections to my home devices without using the wifi or even being home at all? /genuine

Is that the express functionality of a VPN and the word was bent so much by commercial privacy VPN companies that I don't even recognize what it means anymore? /genuine

Am I stupid? /joking

#AskFedi #DuckDuckFedi #TechSupport

I'm trying this new app I heard of called Perspective Intelligence. Apparently it keeps everything on my device, but I have a few questions for anyone who may use this app. If I add memories, are they stored on my device? Also, what is the difference between standard chat and model-only? It does not often answer my questions when I ask. For example, I asked it for the time in a country and I got a message asking about reminders. #perspectiveintelligence #appfeedback #techsupport

The problem I described earlier with a screenshot:

I have these custom desktop entries in ~/.local/share/applications

`notes.desktop`

(you can see it here: https://paste.gentoo.zip/irVHRqKW)

and

`notes-sync.desktop`

(you can see it here: https://paste.gentoo.zip/gDaVXmuV)

One opens my notes, in helix, in ghostty.

The other opens a script in ghostty that watches my notes folder and does a git commit and git push whenever there are changes.

I set icons for them. You can see them fine in the gnome shell app search, as you can see in the screenshot.

You can't see them at the bottom of the screen in the bar there. There are these generic icons instead.

The same generic icons are in alt-tab.

Maybe the "window icon" isn't necessarily the same as the app icon or something like that.

#tech #techsupport #linux #gentoo #gnome #desktop

(tags here so people that want to block them and not see posts like these can)

(EDIT: Problem solved! With this reply https://techhub.social/@konform/116490565176455678)

Librewolf keeps opening the tabs that were opened last, even though I have this tickbox unchecked. I want a fresh session all the time. I never want it to restore anything ever - even if it crashed.

I was able to get this behaviour in my last setup, but I forgot what I did (recently I wiped my hard drive and did a fresh linux install).

Does anyone know how to get this behaviour?

#tech #linux #techsupport #firefox #librewolf

(tags here so people that aren't interested in these topics can ignore them and still follow me)

Technical support is evolving with AI-driven systems.

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• Instant response to technical queries
• Automated troubleshooting workflows
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• Reduced workload for support teams

This improves efficiency and customer satisfaction.

👉 Learn more:
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#AisaXAI #ArtificialIntelligence #TechSupport #Automation #CustomerExperience #DigitalTransformation

I know I talk a lot of shit about it, but turning things off and on again does fix a remarkable number of issues.

#techsupport #protip

@art

Power supply capacitors about to give out?

I've got a firewall that's got that problem, I expect to have to replace it any day now.

#TechSupport
#DidYouTryTurningItOffAndOnAgain
#YesIveTurnedItOffAndOnAgain

My mom just texted me that her MacBook refuses to perform a Time Machine backup because there wasn’t enough space on the local disk. She was confused: it’s supposed to go to an external destination, so why does local space matter?

Turned out only 300 MB were left, and the Time Machine backup not working wasn’t her only problem. The end of the story: she hadn’t emptied the trash in 8 years!

#macos #techsupport

@[email protected]

@gabboman
How come my icons aren't consistent? (I want the rat, not the kilwala)

I've checked it in a private window and force-reload but no dice

It's been fucky for a couple days I think

Man, wtf when did #google start forcing people to have cellphones just to sign into their #youtube account? This is bvllshit! http://youtube.com/@djcomatose

#ScreenshotSaturday #Saturday #Accounts #g00gle #dontbeEVIL #AI #Bots #TechSupport #SilentSunday #garbage #automation #coporateEVIL #billionaires #broken #bullshit #robots #G #cantsignin #verifyitsyou #evil

Do we have any gaming PC experts in here? I’ve been playing #RE9 on my PC through #Steam for a couple days and now all of a sudden today the game only launches to a black screen! I tried deleting the games config file. Tried deleting the game and reinstalling it but the issue persists. Any ideas? #techsupport #residentevil

This week I did an interesting data recovery task for a family. (This was a legal data access. The identities were verified). They were trying to put together a notification list for an upcoming funeral. They could tell the contacts in the person’s laptop were incomplete because names they knew should be there were missing. And the person’s Android phone, with Google Contacts, won’t directly sync to the email app on the laptop. They could go through the phone contacts one at a time, but, was there an easier way?

Yes, there is.

In this case, it was an Android phone. Refer to the picture.

You can export the Google Contacts to a single .vcf file (vcf is an abbreviation of an abbreviation. It stands for vCard File, and vCard is short for Virtual (Business) Card).

People sometimes think that a .vcf file is a single contact, but a .vcf file can contain multiple contact records. It can be quite large and contain hundreds, even thousands, of contacts.

You can view some of the information with any text editor like Notepad. To easily view all of the information, import the .vcf file into a new or existing address book in an email program.

SUMMARY
For this client, the solution was to export the contacts as a .vcf file from the phone, import the .vcf file into the contacts in the computer, and merge duplicates. Now they have a relatively complete list of contacts in one place, and they can manage announcements and invitations using a full-size keyboard.

The client is in another state. A family member did the steps while I coached them over the phone.

#CallMeIfYouNeedMe #FIFONetworks

#TechSupport #RemoteSupport #HelpDesk

Cybersecurity - Networks - Wireless – Telecom – VoIP

Is this something IT people deal with regularly? Or is this an outlier? 🤔

#askfedi #sysadmin #it #technology #email #techsupport #linux #windows

@tgpo I love that they tried rebooting it…

#techSupport

So they splashed down, and it's been a comedy since then.

NASA, 1960s: We landed a crew on the moon and brought them back to Earth with a computer less powerful than the one in a disposable musical birthday card.

NASA, 2020s: You can't reach us on the satphone? Okay, you hang up and we'll try calling you.

#NASA #Integrity #SplashDown #tech #technology #farce #comedy #TechSupport

I finally defeated the final boss of my backup migration to Proton Drive.

For months, I have been trying to sync my 500GB media library (around 80k files) to Proton Drive. Every single time, the sync crashed with the exact same error: "1 item failed to backup." The only clue I had was a blurry thumbnail named "Asset 1". No date, no metadata, no search tags.

I was so frustrated that I even asked Proton support to completely wipe my encrypted volume so I could start from scratch. The result was exactly the same.

Finding this file became a manual protocol. I spent months periodically scanning through thousands of files just looking for a visual match to that tiny thumbnail. I finally found it today. It was an old scan from 2017. It was completely frozen - uneditable, unindexed, and gave an error when I tried to export it from my phone.

I managed to track it down via macOS. When I forced an export there, the truth came out: it was not an image at all. It was a .pdf file somehow saved into the photo gallery, and it was silently breaking the entire upload queue.

Removing it fixed everything. The sync is finally 100% complete. The relief of finally closing this mental background process is unmatched.

#ProtonDrive #SelfHosted #DataHoarder #TechSupport #Backup #TechPhilosophy #DataMigration #Fediverse #Proton

Oh, the irony! The Pentagon's medieval threats are as useful as demanding a JavaScript update from the Vatican's IT department. 💻🔐 In a world where #cookies are essential, even the Holy See can't escape the tech support #purgatory. 🍪🔄
https://www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/the-pentagon-threatened-pope-leo #PentagonThreats #JavaScriptUpdate #TechSupport #Irony #HackerNews #ngated

I am locked out of my Telegram account…

Some days ago someone shared that a zero-day vulnerability was discovered in the Telegram clients, so I uninstalled them from all my devices.

Now I am trying to log in again but:

• on Linux, it tells me to login from my phone first
• with Forkgram on Android I get a message saying that I must use an official client
• with the official Android client I confirm my email address by entering a verification code, but then I am asked to pay .80€ to receive an SMS! I absolutely refuse to do that also because I definitely do not want Telegram to have my payment information!

I actually have a passkey stored in my password manager, but it’s not working apparently…

How do I get in? Please, #help me! I hate Telegram and I want to get off it but I need to access some chats now.

#support #techSupport #Telegram #Android #SMS #passkey #Linux #LinuxApp