Fail day
Everyone has heard the saying that sometimes, everything comes together for the greater good. The same can be said of the reverse. The very fabric of what holds your technology together can suddenly de-rez and leave you with doorstops.
This isn’t a post about how I had a bad day as much as it is a reminder that technology can fail at any time, for any reason. We live with it, and we depend on it, but all it takes is one bad line of code to ruin your day.
Things started at work. Our Clearcase source code management system decided to fail in the morning. What this meant was that we were locked out of editing our source code in place until our IT department could fix it. We could edit our files locally, but we tried everything we could to make the files writable so we could build our changes without having to tell Visual Studio “we want you to look for the files over THERE now. Yes, REALLY. Just do it” . We did eventually start changing to local copies to hobble around until IT fixed the problem. What caused this problem to manifest itself after working flawlessly for months? It turns out a broken alias prevented the Perl scripts from running, and reported back that nobody had access to the server. It only lasted a little while, but could have caused serious problems had it lasted longer since we’re so close to a code freeze for our project.
Later in the afternoon I had to run our web app for packaging up our apps into installers on a remote server. It was crucial this got out today so that someone could look at it in the morning. It turns out, the web app was broken for reasons that are still unknown. No error messages, nothing to say in a polite British tone “oh, I’m so sorry but we can’t do that for you right now”. Just…nothing.
While out after work, I decided to upgrade the software for my Sprint EVDO USB device. It’s been giving me tons of problems when starting up, stating the USB device isn’t connected (it was) or can’t see the network (it could). So I figured I’d download the new 2.2 version and it’ll make it all better. Unfortunately, it made things worse, and I couldn’t log onto Sprint’s network at all anymore because the software went from glitchy to downright broken, and got into this endless loop of “can’t find your device/oh there it is/oh there it went/oh there it is again/darn, lost it” ad nauseam. I figured I’ll just go home and grab the old 1.8 software and reinstall it.
In the meantime, the settings on my Cradlepoint PHS-300 reset again. It’s an uncommon problem with these devices, but seems to clairvoyantly know the very worst time it could happen, and does. Since I was running software 2.1, I decided to upgrade to 2.4. In the middle of upgrading the firmware, the PHS just…died. I left it alone for 10 minutes and it didn’t come back to life. No lights, nothing. I turned it off and turned it back on again to find no lights on. Strange, it had a full charge. Is the battery loose? Nope (the Cradlepoint batteries are VERY tight). Plug it in, turn it on - nothing. Not even a charge LED light. It was bricked. In all the years I’ve upgraded firmware, I never once bricked a device. So at this point I have no wireless internet. I could live without it, but with a trip coming up, I wanted to make sure I had it working when I left.
Knowing that Verizon just released their new MiFi devices, I wanted to compare plans with the Sprint plan I currently have. I tried logging onto their web site which I very rarely use, and I forgot my password. No problem, I’ll just use the “forgot my password” feature and have it emailed to me. Unfortunately, Sprint doesn’t email you your temporary password, they send it to your cell phone. The problem is, I don’t have a cell phone with Sprint since all I have is the EVDO device. It doesn’t receive text messages so I had no way to get into my account on sprint.com. I called their support line, only for them to tell me there’s nothing their department can do. Call someone else. Ok, so I call a different number. They can’t help me, I have to call tech support. Tech support can’t help me, I have to call another number. At this point, I put my headphones on while on hold, and went to the Verizon store and picked up a MiFi. In and out of the store in under 20 minutes. I had to activate it at home, but that didn’t take long.
I got so frustrated with Sprint and their lack of customer service that I cancelled my account. It wasn’t just this event that triggered it, I’ve been having problems with Sprint for a while now. They don’t put their phone number on their bill, they couldn’t charge me properly, they wouldn’t set me up for auto-pay until I paid with the same credit card three months in a row, and after today, I just had it with them. Adios.
So I’m left with a bricked Cradlepoint PHS-300, a Sprint EVDO device which I may be able to sell, and an unfinished installer at work. I wonder sometimes if people put as much effort into making sure things don’t fail as they do making sure they get out the door. Perhaps it should be someone’s job to look at an app or a system and come up with scenarios like “hmm, if you upgrade the firmware and it fails, is there a backup?”, or “why can’t we offer an option to email the password since their phone may be dead?”. Preventive maintenance is something I try to instill in people at work beyond a simple catch/try. People think I overreact until the time comes when a problem ticket comes in with the very same problem I warned them could happen.
Technology is a wonderful achievement, but it can be as flawed as the laziness that went into it.
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