Waking up, feeling like I have a cold I sit down at my computer and see that my biggest client has asked for a minor change. I haven't had my coffee yet, but I can do what they're asking for in a minute. The site is *gone*. Just a permissions error. Have they been hacked?! Why hasn't the client called me?! The files are there and no changes have been made. It doesn't come up on any browser. 10 panicked minutes later I check it on my phone. It comes up. Wait a minute ... While editing /etc/hosts yesterday I'd accidentally uncommented a line for this site that I'd foolishly left in there. One character later my false alarm is solved. I'm getting my damned coffee now.

I just spent an hour debugging my company's web app. More specifically, I was trying to fix a bug that made a label on a comment I just made say "Posted 3 days ago".

After confirming timestamps on the server are correct with a calculator, fiddling around with the js debugger, and ruling out weird timezone-related shenanigans, I came to a conclusion.

The bug was in fact sitting, quite comfortably, between the chair and the keyboard.

Yesterday I had moved the date on my computer roughly 3 days into the future, because I was testing out some unrelated code that was dealing with Redis, and I wanted to expire all of the keys stored inside of it.

Don't blame me, my parents told me I had fallen onto my head as a child.

Introducing my everyday weapon against bugs.
Colour pattern to change depending on my mood or my rage against PEBKAC.

Client: The image upload functionality is broken!!
Me: just tested it, works fine.
Client: no I'm trying to upload this image and it says It cannot complete the request.
Me: hmmm...
Client: does the fact that the image is 36MB has something to do with it?
Me:

Sometimes the pebkac is so strong it continues to amaze me.

Step 1: customer updates pos software
Step 2: customer is presented a perfectly reasonable UAC screen with yes/no choice
Step 3: customer panics and takes no further action
Step 4: a few hours later the first customer enters the store and more panic ensues as the update is still waiting on the uac
Step 5: the customer calls us in panic and acuses us of writing shut incomprehensible software

Wish this was an once in a year exception, untill we wrote a bypass for the whole uac crap this was a daily occurance.

Got an Acer 18.5" monitor.
Took me more than an hour to get correct resolution on my lubuntu.
And still looking for answer and fixing.
I know I will eventually fix it soon (hopefully).
But this kind of things shouldn't exist in this days and age :/

User: "My computer is broken!"
Me: "What seems to be the problem?"
User: "I can't go to any websites."
Me: "It appears our connection to the internet is down."
User: "No it's not, look" *points to Wi-Fi status*
Me:

My favorite PEBKAC encounter:

Was showing a user how to run some reports in our web app, and told her to click on the Reports button. She clicks on it but nothing happens. I start panicking in my head of course, like wtf could have broken to cause the page not to load??? Finally, I realize she pressed down on the mouse button but never released it. PEBMAC?

Quotes are paraphrased (unless *) to protect the incompetent and stupid (or more the case: client and I'm reducing risk of exposure)

Situation: We have a program that opens sqlite database files. Occasionally new versions of the program needs to upgrade these files.

Program UI: To proceed you need to upgrade your database. It is recommended you backup your database before proceeding. Hit Yes to continue or No to abort.

Client: How do you back up a model once it has upgraded? If I hit No the program closes leaving me no option to backup the model.

Support: *The easiest way of backing up a model before upgrading is creating a copy of the file and keeping it in a separate folder*

Client: *Haha forgot about being able to do that outside of* <program name>

TL;DR: engineer in technical role who is probably getting paid $150k+ forgets it is possible to make a copy of a file.

I didn't realise just how retarded people are when they call tech support.

Working combined line 1/2 tech support and people just describe shit in the most unhelpful way ever.

current site issue, client and pm cant see the full list of people in multiple select box because they cant find the scroll bar.

Today I coded till my fingers bled. Dunno if I should be scared or proud.