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Friday 13th. Superstition.

0655, got WFH laptop going. 0700, VPN'ed in. Bluescreen, first in ages. Yes, Windows, the hatred is mutual. Rebooted. Windows claimed memory fault, offered check, 40 minutes. Noped out. Started machine. VPN'ed in. Some strange script error that I'd never seen before. Rebooted. Script error again. Shut down machine, then rebooted, same problem. 0715, fuck, still wearing sweaters, my e-scooter not charged, and an important Teams call at 0800.

Got dressed, stuffed laptop into backpack, hurried up by foot. Took the bus. Fuck, the next connection on the change station just had gone off. Took a taxi to make it. Arrived at the company, plugged in the laptop, started with no issues. Had the important call.

Took the laptop to IT. Tested it with external network connection and VPN. Worked with no script error. Had it checked for RAM issues. No issue. WTF had happened in the morning?!

Comments
  • 1
    Maybe an update hardfailed to install, rolled back automatically on next start and is marked as blocked since.
  • 2
    @Oktokolo I had rebooted it and then even went through the standard "switch it off and then on again" cycle - hadn't worked.

    Maybe plugging it in to the company intranet when I arrived there synced up something to something else so that this would explain why it suddenly worked, but not why I had the problem in the first place.

    Especially because the laptop had worked the day before and had no pending updates because we don't pull any updates directly from MS, only from central IT. That in turn requires to either be plugged in locally in the company intranet, or being VPN'ed in which had failed.
  • 1
    Wifi adapter dying? I assume work and home wifi uses different properties.

    Or windows networking drivers crapped up? Idk how windows networking is abstracted, but if it matters what wifi its connected to when connecting to vpn, it could be smth..

    Just some random thoughts

    I wonder if that will repeat again at home
  • 1
    @netikras I use only wired ethernet, both at home and in the company, so it can't be wifi related.

    At home, it's a dedicated guest port at my router because I don't allow a foreign machine in my local network, and I pulled an additional ethernet cable through the appartment just for the WFH laptop.

    The strange thing is that I had been using that laptop also at home for about half a year already with no issues.
  • 2
    @Fast-Nop then I guess your lappy simply had one of those tough mornings.. :)
  • 0
    I'll be honest, I've never been a fan of Friday the 13th. Strange things often happen on that day. And if you're as superstitious as I am. Then you will be useful platform https://sspdaily.com/section-societ... where there are a lot of interesting articles about superstitions. Some of them are definitely worth checking out.
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