God I hate this. The fact that I understand why, doesn’t detract from my annoyance with the result. And worse, a large number of Reddit archives have either stagnated or completely died because of the API cutoff, meaning often times that answer is irrecoverable.
I mean a good troubleshooter will take that info as ruling out the application as long as the version matches. That means next you compare libraries and permissions.
As a software developer, hearing "it works on my machine" from a subset of users is actually helpful information. It means the problem is environmental, or data related, instead of an explicit code issue. It does narrow things down a bit.
The issue arises when some people treat it as a reason to ignore a problem.
I mean, that's basically how I find the root cause of problems that occur in one environment but not the other.
Most recently was when a plasma desktop of any newly created user wouldn't shut down properly, at logout it would hang for about a minute with an error in the logs stating that plasma-plasmashell.service was not responding to a sigterm, and was then ultimately force killed by systemd. On my main desktop, I didn't have this issue.
By meticulously diffing plasma related config files, I found that the culprit was in ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc. Disabling a few system tray applets that I didn't need (and that I indeed had already disabled on my main desktop) fixed the issue.
Me when I'm helping someone troubleshoot their issue and provided them with useful information, and they say I'm not helping them because I didn't solve it for them.
Of course, I'm at the point in my career where the people I'm helping are actual IT people, so they shouldn't really need me to solve it for them no matter how much they hope that would be the result.
When a user comes to me, I understand that the solution is what they need from me. Although I've also been accused of not helping by users who thought I was blaming them by asking questions like, "What were you doing when the problem occurred?"
A few days ago I aked a dev at our subcontractor if this proprietary software would in theory run on windows. Not only "yes", but me running mint on my worklaptop was perfect, because his dev and test environment was debian, so even though the software was built to run on windows, he could easily build a version specifically for me.
Don't agree. Often someone's problem can be resolved by just doing something else. That doesn't mean lecturing, but I've seen many, many times where someone was having trouble because they were going about something in the wrong way. Sometimes the most-useful help is to step back and say "you may not want to be doing X, and may want to be doing Y".
The reason why I disagree is that commenters don't always have the full picture. When I already know exactly what I need, receiving many comments, but none helpful, is exhausting. Sometimes it'd be nice to have help on a specific problem without having to convince strangers of every other choice I made in the path.
An example: I've seen people on Reddit ask for help with Linux drivers and be told to buy new hardware entirely. Or ask if a dumbphone supports Whatsapp, and be told to ditch it by Americans who think it's just another social network that you can opt out of.
45 Comments
red_tomato@lemmy.world · 87 pts · 102d
”Just use Google. It’s literally the top result!”
Oh boy, you ain’t gonna believe how I found this forum thread.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 101d
When that forum is a reddit thread:
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 101d
God I hate this. The fact that I understand why, doesn’t detract from my annoyance with the result. And worse, a large number of Reddit archives have either stagnated or completely died because of the API cutoff, meaning often times that answer is irrecoverable.
sirico@feddit.uk · 73 pts · 102d
Don't worry guys it's fixed....
lordnikon@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 102d
I mean a good troubleshooter will take that info as ruling out the application as long as the version matches. That means next you compare libraries and permissions.
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 102d
Not always. Race conditions, for example, can have different behavior on different systems.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 102d
As a software developer, hearing "it works on my machine" from a subset of users is actually helpful information. It means the problem is environmental, or data related, instead of an explicit code issue. It does narrow things down a bit.
The issue arises when some people treat it as a reason to ignore a problem.
BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 102d
Yeah it's just a problem of generating a
diffand having a quick look /jSpaceCadet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 97d
I mean, that's basically how I find the root cause of problems that occur in one environment but not the other.
Most recently was when a plasma desktop of any newly created user wouldn't shut down properly, at logout it would hang for about a minute with an error in the logs stating that
plasma-plasmashell.servicewas not responding to a sigterm, and was then ultimately force killed by systemd. On my main desktop, I didn't have this issue.By meticulously diffing plasma related config files, I found that the culprit was in
~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc. Disabling a few system tray applets that I didn't need (and that I indeed had already disabled on my main desktop) fixed the issue.OwOarchist@pawb.social · 33 pts · 102d
"Great, so just send me your machine, and we're good."
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz · 29 pts · 102d
And so Docker was born.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 102d
But now I can’t get docker running.
jballs@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 102d
Huh, it works on my machine...
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz · 6 pts · 102d
Get podman running and Ill send you an image with my docker.
Obnomus@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 101d
Vaild answer
kamen@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 102d
Ask them to ship their machine to you.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 102d
And thus Docker was born!
Edit: Great minds think alike...and so did we! https://mander.xyz/comment/27610194
kamen@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 102d
Yep, that was what I was referring to.
Obnomus@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 101d
Best idea ngl
NABDad@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 102d
Me when I'm helping someone troubleshoot their issue and provided them with useful information, and they say I'm not helping them because I didn't solve it for them.
Of course, I'm at the point in my career where the people I'm helping are actual IT people, so they shouldn't really need me to solve it for them no matter how much they hope that would be the result.
When a user comes to me, I understand that the solution is what they need from me. Although I've also been accused of not helping by users who thought I was blaming them by asking questions like, "What were you doing when the problem occurred?"
badcommandorfilename@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 102d
Sound like a skill issue
daggermoon@piefed.world · 6 pts · 102d
What issue are you having?
Thorry@feddit.org · 15 pts · 102d
Probably a skill issue
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 102d
Fucking noobs. I’m running Solaris on two paper clips and a rubber band.
daggermoon@piefed.world · 2 pts · 102d
Solaris still exists?
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 102d
IT DOES ON MY PAPER CLIPS AND RUBBER BAND!
Obnomus@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 101d
Ok I laughed at this
Una@europe.pub · 6 pts · 102d
Did you tried putting it in the rice on the sun?
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 102d
And that is why I chose Debian as my distro. People aren’t developing with obscure small-time distros in mind.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 102d
A few days ago I aked a dev at our subcontractor if this proprietary software would in theory run on windows. Not only "yes", but me running mint on my worklaptop was perfect, because his dev and test environment was debian, so even though the software was built to run on windows, he could easily build a version specifically for me.
plutopos@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 101d
Even worse when they instead lecture you on why you shouldn't do that
Obnomus@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 100d
Yeah, I saw someone asking "why do you need that app?"
tal@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 94d
Don't agree. Often someone's problem can be resolved by just doing something else. That doesn't mean lecturing, but I've seen many, many times where someone was having trouble because they were going about something in the wrong way. Sometimes the most-useful help is to step back and say "you may not want to be doing X, and may want to be doing Y".
plutopos@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 94d
The reason why I disagree is that commenters don't always have the full picture. When I already know exactly what I need, receiving many comments, but none helpful, is exhausting. Sometimes it'd be nice to have help on a specific problem without having to convince strangers of every other choice I made in the path.
An example: I've seen people on Reddit ask for help with Linux drivers and be told to buy new hardware entirely. Or ask if a dumbphone supports Whatsapp, and be told to ditch it by Americans who think it's just another social network that you can opt out of.
mecen@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 102d
That means that can't replicate it, you need to give more details or something.
mlg@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 102d
Trying to do any type of hardware acceleration on waydroid.
enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 101d
their machine: washing machine
your machine: coffee machine
Obnomus@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 100d
I don't drink coffee, water is good.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 88d
your machine: washing machine
their machine: coffee machine
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 102d
Works on my Arch install.
cobalt32@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 102d
Works on my Nix flake
grandma@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 102d
nix fixes this
Allero@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 102d
It's okay, so is your machine
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 94d
Useful datapoint.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 102d
"well I provide this help on my own time so"
Tells you to Google it again