Funny Tech Fails!

[CAKE99]

This is a thread where you post funny technology fails!

I will start with 2.

About a week ago when I was editing one of my posts here I accidentally rolled one of my chair wheels into the power button on my computer so it turned off.

Around the same time I was on a Skype call with a friend, the headphones I use require me to take the protective case of my phone, then when I was moving my chair I dropped my phone and the built in case (the one that holds the battery in) came off and the battery fell out.

[Tex_NL]

About 10 years ago was at a meet&greet from a internet forum I used to frequent. It's real fun to actually meet the people you got to know through nothing but posts on a forum. But that's a completely different story.

Well, we all met up at this guys house to have a few beers (obviously it ended up as being more than just a few), good food and a good laugh. Our host was just like the majority of us pretty tech-savvy and had several computers lined up. And we were all free to use them. After several hours had past dusk fell and one of the group decided it was time the computer corner needed some illumination. He looked up from the keyboard and noticed a switch on the wall. Assuming that would turn on the lights he flipped it. ... And everything went dark. Monitors, PC's, printer, router and modem. All dead.

Turned out it wasn't a light switch at all. It was a switch that fed the entire desk with much needed power.

[Sampa]

Oh...every day is a fail,for,me...

[Dark Junior]

I recently came SO close to beating final fantasy III (OR VI) when we had a split-second powerout. (Okay, wasn't my fault.)

That, or the time I nudged my computer's power cord while I was playing X-Com. I hadn't saved in a while, so I lost ALOT of progress.

[Sampa]

I recently came SO close to beating final fantasy III (OR VI) when we had a split-second powerout. (Okay, wasn't my fault.)

That, or the time I nudged my computer's power cord while I was playing X-Com. I hadn't saved in a while, so I lost ALOT of progress.

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest]

The entire network at my school.

I once formatted my entire hard drive. Oops.

[CelticCossack51]

I turned the computer I was using to show a friend what I made, but a cord must have unplugged and the monitor turned off.

[Ethanadams]

Forgetting passwords

and then hen having to do something somewhat unsafe to reset admin password which involved turning of windows just as your computer started

[Flymetothemun]

Forgetting passwords

and then hen having to do something somewhat unsafe to reset admin password which involved turning of windows just as your computer started

That isn't funny, that's just plain stupid! Make a password reset disk and keep it somewhere safe.

[CAKE99]

Forgetting passwords

and then hen having to do something somewhat unsafe to reset admin password which involved turning of windows just as your computer started

I use Evernote to store all of my passwords.

[cicatrix]

I use Evernote to store all of my passwords.

Sooo, you trust your passwords to an online storage? I was perfectly content with Google notes but then they discontinued the support and offered to upgrade to Evernote. They didn't even offer any way to retrieve my notes so they were lost. I've never trusted any sensitive information to any online service and never will. I simply assume that anything that goes online is public domain.

[Pixel of Life]

I once noticed my HDD was completely full for some reason so I ran Windirstat and it said my "Videos" folder was several hundred GB in size. I checked the folder and it had more than 16 hours of footage from The Crew, Minecraft and Fallout 3, as well as the complete "Sunshine" movie, all in 60fps 1080p HD. Apparently I had accidentally activated Shadowplay and didn't even notice because it's hardware based (runs on a separate circuit on the graphics card) so it didn't have any impact on performance.

[T-Bouw]

Oh, I work with computers so much that almost nothing surprises me anymore.

Almost...

One day I turned on a Windows XP machine and the desktop graphics were all fractal-like. It was kinda pretty actually!

I really did not know where to look for that problem.

In the end I turned off and on the machine and the problem never came again. Go figure.

[Kozak]

Sooo, you trust your passwords to an online storage? I was perfectly content with Google notes but then they discontinued the support and offered to upgrade to Evernote. They didn't even offer any way to retrieve my notes so they were lost. I've never trusted any sensitive information to any online service and never will. I simply assume that anything that goes online is public domain.

with that logic every password to anything online, including yours, is free game.

[H2O.]

When I was young I used windows XP. And because I was young, I was constantly installing and removing software, tweaking configurations and drivers, etc. Usually, it went to a point when I needed to format the hard-drive and make a clean-install.

So here I was with my once-again brand new computer and everything works again but strangely, no sound comes out of the speakers. So I install/remove/tweaks drivers, look for informations online for hours. 3 in the morning and still no sound. In despair I go to bed.

The next morning when I walk past the computer I see this unplugged cable. Of course it was the speakers' cable. Turns out everything was working fine from the start, but somehow (maybe I tripped?) the cable was unplugged. Useless to say I felt like a complete moron.

Now that I am older and wiser, I let my computer on default options, use linux and don't dare to make even the slightest modification to anything if it is working. As the saying goes : if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Edited October 20, 2015 by H2O.

[obsidian_x]

Best one for me - running a sql script to update a bunch of records to reset them to quote status, but with the amount of testing I was doing to get it right, was using the select a bit of the query and run a "parse" (aka Ctrl-F5), except one time, I accidentally ran the command (F5) - basically an update script but I hadn't included the where clause, so it updated all 100k records in the db. Luckily was only semi important TEST environment, and we could restore it from a previous day. Testers weren't happy to lose the best part of a day's testing time.

Now I make sure it's within a transaction, that has a rollback command immediately after. Only changing it to commit when I'm happy the result is exactly what I want.

[Nikolai]

At my first job as a software engineer, I named the directory on my Linux box that held all of my software development "dev", a subdirectory within my home directory.

It was my first Linux box, so I made the classic mistake of constantly logging in as "root" so I wouldn't have to sudo.

A co-worker showed up who introduced me to the wonderful world of external software repositories (and subversion). I backed up all my programming work to it. Then, deciding that I'd start from those repositories and import only the stuff that was still being actively developed, I opted to nuke the copies on my local hard drive, planning to then go check the system logs.

Except I forgot the tilde that symbolized my home directory. Instead of typing in "rm -rf ~/dev", I typed in "rm -rf /dev".

I finally noticed my mistake when the computer started to forget how to do things as drivers dropped out of RAM. I ended up re-installing the OS from disk.

[Torgo]

I have 2 of them...

I was troubleshooting an office's issue over the phone. Their printer was printing out every page with the company's name and phone number on the top of the page, no matter what they tried. I checked every setting I could think of, but nothing fixed it. So I drove out for 3 hours the next day to see if I could figure out what was happening.

They were printing on company letterhead instead of blank paper.

While doing phone support for a then major pharma company's sales reps, one of them called in to say she couldn't send or receive email anymore because the mailbox was full. We had a set playbook on how to handle this all too common call, and I ran it step for step, including emptying the deleted items folder, which was quite full.

She got irate asking me why I emptied the deleted items folder, because that's where she kept everything she needed (they couldn't make their own sub folders, but could keep things in PST files). She demanded to talk to my manager. I went over to his office, and he was in there with the director of all the sales reps. I told him what happened and that she wanted to talk to him, and he had me transfer the call over and put it on speaker.

The rep started a tirade with language that would make a sailor blush. Finally, her director announced his presence, and asked her to confirm that she was saving important documents and messages in deleted items and not in a PST.

I processed her termination the next day.

[Rainbowtrout]

Quite a while ago I was playing an RPG or something on a DS, and I accidentally nudged the power switch. So many hours lost. Never forget.

[Fluburtur]

2 days ago I was trying to get some signal with the built in antena of one of my old tube radio when the power went out, it wasn"t even amplifying anything. It might not be my fault because I used it as an amp before that the same day but it happened right when I turned one of the button.

[T-Bouw]

Quite a while ago I was playing an RPG or something on a DS, and I accidentally nudged the power switch. So many hours lost. Never forget.

Oh that happened to me as well one day!

That power button is placed in such an awkward and "dangerous" place.

Right in the palm of your hand.

[Deadpangod3]

do model rockets fall under Tech?

this happened yesterday.

backstory:

my mother runs a daycare and a two year old (soon to be three ) that comes LOVES rockets and planes, it wasn't very windy that day and i had just gotten the last things needed for my model rocket so i could launch it, i figured id make his day and launch it so he could see.

so i get it all set up finally, fuse is in the engine with the plug, cables are attached and its ready to launch, all i have to do is stand back and press the launch button.

at this point the child is excited as can be, making "woosh" noises like an airplane. i kneel down, insert the safety key, count it down, and press the button...

Nothing.

press it again.

Nothing.

so i replace the fuse and plug, and try again.

Nothing.

i tried replacing the engine too this time, maybe i just got a deffective engine.

Nothing.

after three more tries it still doesnt work and the child's mother arrives to pick him up. guess no rocket launches for him today.

me and my older brother then spend the next 3 hours trying to figure out whats wrong. Until the sun goes down and its too dark to launch it anyways.

we eventualy found out the ignitor is too small and doesnt burn hot enough to ignite the propellant, so we have to get bigger fuses

so that was frustrating.

[StrandedonEarth]

That's odd. If you use standard Estes rocket engines, they come with ignitors that work perfectly, and with their new (to me) plastic plugs that they didn't have years ago, I haven't had a motor fail to light in the 20-odd launches since I picked up the hobby again (kids, perfect excuse to exercise my inner kerbal). If the ignitor isn't hot enough, you probably need new batteries. And rechargeables probably don't push enough voltage.

Ever connect an ignitor to house current? It goes *pop*

Edited October 21, 2015 by StrandedonEarth

[Deadpangod3]

That's odd. If you use standard Estes rocket engines, they come with ignitors that work perfectly, and with their new (to me) plastic plugs that they didn't have years ago, I haven't had a motor fail to light in the 20-odd launches since I picked up the hobby again (kids, perfect excuse to exercise my inner kerbal). If the ignitor isn't hot enough, you probably need new batteries. And rechargeables probably don't push enough voltage.

Ever connect an ignitor to house current? It goes *pop*

the battery was brand new, and the wires were working fine, because the plug kept fusing to the fuse, it just wasn't igniting the propellant.

[StrandedonEarth]

Not my fails, but still funny...

No, my printer isn't bugged, but...

And neither is my PC, but...