Tag: Troubleshooting

The real fix to hearing your mic in your headphones

Tech

If you want to skip ahead, dear reader, the answer is down there.

It is infuriating to have a technical issue that you know you’ve fixed previously, but when you search the ‘net for the solution you know exists, all you get are results for the incorrect fix. I am posting this to document the problem I had yesterday and the real fix for it, in the hope that it might save someone else in the future, or even me if it comes up again and I forget what the fix is.

This past weekend I upgraded my computer, going from an Intel Core i7-7700 to a modern AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3D because gaming. Because I was doing a CPU swap I wanted a nice fresh install of Windows 10 instead of porting over all the cruft of my previous installation. I wrote a step-by-step for the whole thing just to help my neurodivergent brain, and I will post that at some point now that it’s done.

But because it’s a fresh install, I ran in to a problem that I’ve had before. When I put my headphones on to play the game that prompted all this nerdery, Dragon Age The Veilguard, I could hear my microphone playing in my headphones. In audio terms I was monitoring my mic.

I went to Start > Settings > System > Sound, clicked on Sound Control Panel, and went to the Recording tab. I selected my microphone (Yeti Classic) and clicked Properties. And lo and behold, the “Listen to this device” box was unchecked. That means it shouldn’t be coming through my headphones. There must be some other fix.

So off I went to generically google the solution. And I found page after page after page of people saying the solution was to uncheck the “Listen to this device” box. But it’s already unchecked! I even found people, like me, asking what to do if the box is already unchecked. And the answers wandered off in the direction of reinstalling the audio drivers or using Microsoft’s useless troubleshooters. That ain’t it, chief.

The answer, dear reader, is this:

The Real Answer to Not Monitor Your Mic

You have to check the “Listen to this device” box, click Apply, then uncheck it again, and click Apply again.

Yes, you have to turn it on and off again. That did the trick. I don’t remember how I came up with this the last time it plagued me, or if there was a page that mentions this annoying bug that has fallen out of the top 20 or 30 search results (thanks, Google), but now it’s documented.

I had so much frustration with this. I want to spare you, the reader, any future frustration. Maybe this is only in Windows 10, so it will eventually stop being a thing when support ends for Win10 in a year. But at least now, I’ve done my duty and shared it. Now go share this so others can find it. Thanks for listening.

So Old It Refused To Update

Tech

I mentioned yesterday that I spent a lot of time out of my work day on just two issues. The first one was a printer issue. Printer-ish, at least. Let’s just say it was printer-adjacent.

What was the other one, you ask? I am happy to answer that for you. It was the most stubborn Chrome installation I have ever had the misfortune to experience. It was the Chrome installation that would not die.

I got the call as an escalation, actually. The user reported that they were getting a message that Chrome was not compatible with several sites they needed to use, and it required an update. The computer was a Surface tablet, which in my experience is an indication of trouble right off the bat. Surface tablets are popular with a lot of users, but not that popular with technicians. I’m not saying this problem was caused by the janky hardware, but it might have been a contributing factor.

One of my coworkers spent more than an hour over the course of several calls trying, and failing, to get that really old version of Chrome to either update to a more recent version, or completely uninstall so they could just install the newest version. My co-worker tried everything they knew, and asked me if I could take a look.

How hard could that be? If nothing else, I thought, I can just delete all the folders, delete the relevant Registry entries, and start over. A slash-and-burn strategy. But that’s not where I started. I started by trying to cover the basics. Always start out with the simplest fixes, test that it did or did not solve the issue, and move on to more and more complicated fixes. One step at a time, check your options. Troubleshoot methodically.

I started with just trying to uninstall. I tried running the uninstaller with admin rights. I made sure that there wasn’t malware that might be preventing the updater from running. None of that worked.

I double-checked that the issue wasn’t just on the user’s profile. Nope, same problem in another account on the same computer. That told me that it was a Windows-wide issue. Something was deeply broken in this computer.

I spent a lot of time backing up the user’s bookmarks by trying to copy out the folders in %appdata% which was slow going. I did that because the user was not able to log in to their Google account to sync. That is a result of the version of Chrome being so old; it was incompatible with current Google accounts. I think that’s why this was so broken; it had been frozen in time, while Windows and Google advanced, to the point where it was stuck, not functioning. It was too old to update properly, if you can imagine such a thing.

I should have just had the user bring their tablet in, wipe the thing, and reinstall Windows. That would have about the same amount time spent than what I tried next. I began my burning bridges strategy.

To my utter surprise, it even refused to let me delete the Registry keys. I hadn’t seen that before.

I was able to delete the folder in C:\Program Files(x86)\ though. And in its place I installed a portable version of Chrome, which was newer than what the user had been working with. It did let them log in, sync their bookmarks, and use the sites they needed. It still gave an error about not being able to update, though. All I’d done is kick the can down the road a bit.

For sure, the next step is to wipe it and reinstall everything. At least they’re working for now.

Brian vs. Printer

Tech

Spent a good chunk of my work day today on two issues; almost 3 hours. The first one was a printer issue and I am not sure that I’ve ever said this here but I hate printers. I hate them so much. Out of all the tech out there that I need to troubleshoot and repair, printers are at the bottom of my list. They’re fiddly, they all have their own unique interfaces and labels and functions so they’re not standarized like operating systems or computer hardware or phones, and they all have moving parts that are prone to malfunctioning and breakdown.

Oh wait I have said I hate printers, and recently. Apologies for my Swiss-cheese memory. That’s why I tried to buy the most boring and functional printer I could find.

This particular printer was in an office setting. It was an MFP which stands for Multi-Function Printer, which means it had a scanner and a fax machine built in. More fiddly parts that are prone to breakdown and malfunctioning, just what a printer needs. Bolting more abilities to something already full of potential for failure is a clear path to extra failure.

According to the customer, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, the printer was their main source for scanning documents, a key office function. It was working on Friday, and when it worked properly, it would scan a document and send the file, via email, to the selected user. The client said that they had been getting errors recently, but rebooting the printer usually cleared up the problem. Until today.

Reader I spent so much time on this. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, I was doing this all remotely. My boss believes in doing as much as possible remotely, because he charges customers extra if a tech has to come onsite. He charges for travel time and there’s a surcharge for onsite time. So I had the customer on the phone, and I was remoted in to their computer.

Let me try to shortcut what I did. I wanted to be methodical. My first task was to find out if there were any obvious errors. I was able to get into the web interface for the printer and there were no errors. The fact that I could see it over the network meant that it was, well, on the network. So that wasn’t the issue.

That all took me about 20 minutes, if my memory serves me right. It was a bit of slow going. But the next part was nearly an hour of trying different configurations of settings. Because this wasn’t strictly a printer issue. It was a network connectivity and email issue. I had to find the exact right combination of server, port, and authentication issues that would let this printer send an email. I had to dig through the printer settings (keeping in mind what I said above about how each printer manufacturer uses their own jargon for otherwise standard things), email server settings, and help documents from the printer manufactuer and the email provider, matching up things that were surprisingly differentiated.

Reader, I won. I managed to get it all sorted. And I documented it all for the next tech to come along. It just took me nearly an hour and a half.

Since I’m over my 500 word goal, I’ll save the other troubleshooting story for a separate post.

Troubleshooting

Tech

Had a rough day at work yesterday. Specifically, the task I was assigned to do had many hidden pitfalls. Going in, I wanted to be prepared and made at least one choice to try to mitigate for something I thought wasn’t in place. Which lead me to spending extra time getting an extra part I thought I needed, even more time trying to make that part work, and spend time undoing the unneeded mitigation because it looked like everything we needed was in place.

Sorry, I’m trying not to give too many client secrets away so this may be extra vague. You’d think that the above covered the whole dang process, but there was a second part, where I kept trying to make the parts I knew about work, until it turned out there were even more hidden parts that were silently causing another set of problems in the background, until I found and disabled them.

Fixin’ things is better than not fixin’ things.

What could I have done better? I could have done more investigation in the beginning; some of the parts in place were available to me before I got onsite, and I could have found some of that out going in. Other parts were not known to me and had to be discovered onsite, though.

I could have gone through my troubleshooting faster, I suppose; I got mentally blocked by all the surprises and it slowed me down, and led me to asking my lead for more help. Help they’re happy to provide, and they insist they are not upset with me at all, but it weighs on my sense of duty, y’know? I’m very Capricorn Sun like that.

But troubleshooting, which is what I do for my job in my career, is often like that. You go into a new sitaution not knowing all the details, and finding out those details is the majority of the process. Only when you have the full picture can you start coming up with a solution. And it’s often the case that you try multiple solutions before you find the one that works. It’s not always obvious what solution will fix or resolve the problem, and that’s due to the fact that in a complex system you can’t know every factor that is involved.

Luckily the clients knew none of this. All they saw was a tech working away dilligently and in the end it all worked. They never said, to me at least, that I was taking too long, or that the job was easy and should have been finished faster. They just let me work and waited for it to be done. That was nice, and I appreciated that, but because I knew what was going on in my head – stress, anxiety, doubt – I still felt guilty.

But once I was able to clear all the known and unknown hurdles, the task was swiftly brought to a successful close. And that felt good, reaching the right conclusion after hours (literally hours, fuckitall) of confusion, frustration, and investigation. All’s well, that ends well.

Intermittent Internet Connection

Tech

This might be a short one tonight, but I will try to include as much information as I can. Consider this an open support ticket for myself in the future.

I’ve had intermittent internet connection issues at home for the past couple of months. About once or twice a week, my cable modem (an Arris Surfboard G36 that I own, not one I rent from Xfinity) will lose connection. The logs on the cable modem are essentially useless; there’s never anything in them, let alone anything that might point to a problem. Since the problem is at the modem, it affects everything else downstream on my network, wired or wireless.

I’ve seen this issue before and it led to me replacing the previous cable modem with this one, a relatively expensive piece of small-business kit. (Edited to add: this Arris Surfboard G36 was purchased on 19 April 2022 – Brian) I’ve kept a log of the dropouts in case I have to contact Xfinity support, but I’m trying to collect more information before beating my head against the wall with their support. The few times I’ve contacted them, I get a chatbot that tells me to reboot the modem. Because the dropouts clear themselves up if I just wait it out for 10-15 minutes, I can’t tell if rebooting just occupies the time necessary for the problem to resolve on its own. I need more information.

The cable modem does have some diagnostic tools: basic shit like ping and traceroute, and a DOCSIS spectrum analyzer. My problem is, I don’t know how to read the results of the spectrum analyzer. I don’t know what’s within spec. The cable modem also reports a lot of information about the different up- and downstream channels: frequency, power level (in dB), signal-to-noise ratio, lock status. Again, despite my trying to find out what all this means and what the numbers should be, I haven’t been able to self-tutor enough to sort it out. Of course, Xfinity’s support articles are incredibly basic, aimed at non-tech consumers, so they don’t publish or bury the information I’m looking for.

I did find, during today’s troubleshooting, that a coax cable signal tester is incredibly cheap; $20. That might help me figure out if there’s something wrong with the wiring in my building (I rent so I inherited whatever is already in the walls.) Maybe there’s a slightly-more-expensive one that will give more information than just yes-signal/no-signal.

Edited to add: My problems did settle down a bit after the last factory reset I did on the modem, which by my records was on 6 March 2024, which feels relatively recent enough that I’m loathe to try it again.

Today’s outage, though, turned out not to be anything to do with my cable modem or Xfinity. In doing science, a flaw, a human flaw, is only reporting positive results. Gotta report all results in order to figure out what’s going on. What I’m saying is that today’s outage was my own damned fault. I was confuzzled because only my own desktop computer was showing any connection issues and slowness. Every other device on my network was fine. I’ll jump to the end: I had forgotten that my desktop computer was using a Proton VPN connection and it was eating up my bandwidth, disconnecting from time to time, and causing a whole lotta latency, which did not affect any other network device. Mea culpa!

I have a small audience here; if anyone has any suggestions for troubleshooting a cable modem connection issue, I am all ears. Reply or send me a note, I’d love to hear from you!

Fixing OBS Game Capture for Fallout 3

Gaming, Tech

Quick post to document a problem I had and the solution that worked for me.

When streaming/recording Fallout 3 using OBS Studio, if I used Game Capture, OBS would show the game briefly but then freeze up, or worse, just show a black screen. Tried every setting in OBS that I could change for Game Capture, tried running OBS as administrator, even uninstalled and reinstalled OBS. Just could not get it to work. Didn’t want to use Fullscreen Capture for aesthetic reasons (it would capture my desktop, or notifications unrelated to the game, that kind of thing.)

So I broke down and read the documentation. Wouldn’t you know it, they had a solution to this.

I had to disable/close RivaTuner Statistics Server. That did the trick. Turns out having that overlay breaks Game Capture in OBS. I seriously would have never thought of that if I hadn’t gone in and found the OBS support docs.

Good documentation saves lives! Or at least prevents stress wrinkles.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Daily Story Project

Never a good time when you start your car and get a Check Engine light. Right? I saw a TikTok in the past few days where someone was arguing that every time they feel good about their situation, bam!, car trouble. I would believe it except I haven’t felt good about my situation for quite a while now. Things are dire, y’all. Nobody’s hiring for my skill set. If it weren’t for the help of family I would probably be half way to homelessness. True facts.

But, damn, Check Engine. Do I have to check the engine right now? Listen, my car is old enough to rent a car (1996 Honda Accord) and I thought that thing would run forever as long as I keep the fluids topped up. OK, OK, I haven’t been keeping the fluids quite as topped up as I’d like to. That one’s on me.

Even more shamefully, though, my dad was in the car. As mentioned previously, he’s been staying with me while his living space is remodeled, and since he doesn’t drive, he asked me to run him up to the 7-11 for some cigarettes. Not a problem! He’s commented in amazement that my car continues to run at all and I’ve laughed it off, knowing that it’s probably on its last legs, and hiding how nervous I am about driving it. Don’t worry, everything safety-wise and legal-wise works and is paid for, and I’m not a danger to anyone else. I just always drive with the secret fear that it’s going to leave me stranded.

Like this morning. The engine sounded fine. But there was that angry orange light on my dashboard. Check. Engine. Could be worse, it could be flashing. Flashing Check Engine lights are the highest level of alert.

Dad said to check the oil and of course, it was low. I had a quart handy but that barely brought it up to the level of the bottom of the dipstick, so I walked to the nearest car parts store and bought some more. Sadly that didn’t make that stupid light go out, so now we needed more diagnostic info. The car parts store plugged in to my car’s ODB II port and said: Oxygen Sensor issue.

We paid too much for an O2 sensor, rented the stupid special socket wrench needed to get it out, along with some WD-40 and wiper blades (it was due) and just over an hour later, a brand-new O2 sensor was installed. We only lost one bolt in the process, an unnecessary bolt for a shroud over the exhaust manifold (it only needed the two bolts to hold it in place, honestly.) The car parts guy said that I needed to drive it for a full cycle of about 25 miles or so, so I asked dad if he needed to go anywhere else. I ran him around town for his errands, we stopped at Kay’s for happy hour and burgers, and got back home.

Again, let me stress: the engine is running fine. No stalling or racing, no weird sounds or smells. Just normal engine running. Hopefully nothing is catastrophically breaking under the hood. But that orange Check Engine light is still on.

Tomorrow morning we’re gonna try replacing the air filter (that’s another potential cause of the error code we got) and if that fails, unplug the battery to reset the computer and clear the code.

I’m sure it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just as fine today as it was yesterday before that dumb light came on. I’m almost positive.