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Just Reboot It — Why Now?
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Just Reboot It

The first thing that you are going to be told to do if you call a support line is to reboot your system. The reason is that resetting everything clears up most technical issues.

Let’s say you have a major client, we’ll call it the government of Australia, and you have a multimillion dollar project for that client, something like the census, and it slams to a halt after launch and is down for two days, what should you do?

How about: rebooting the system!

Of course, that assumes that you have tested the system and know that it will work.

12 comments

1 Badtux { 10.27.16 at 12:30 am }

It also assumes that the system will come back up cleanly. I had a power outage on Wednesday of last week at work. We have a power conditioner but we can’t afford batteries to keep three racks of equipment up and operational. So it took me two days to get everything back up afterwards. One server wouldn’t come back up altogether, I had to rebuild it from scratch and backups. One of my ESXi servers has a dead file on its filesystem taking up space that I cannot delete, the only solution will be to migrate those files somewhere else and reformat that filesystem, and that’s going to be another day’s worth of work at some point. Either that or update it to ESXi 6 which has an actual fsck for vmfs, but I need to see what the license restrictions are on the free version of ESXi 6 first….

Yeah, I ought to do bounce testing regularly, but this whole mess is made out of obsolete scrap from defunct companies and random eBay bits and pieces and has grown organically rather than by any design, so.

2 Bryan { 10.27.16 at 8:18 pm }

IBM supposedly had a brand new system put together for the census effort, but one of the routers hung up. They knew it was going to be a massive job for a day or so, almost like a DDOS attack, so you would have thought they would have done more testing.

Yes, we both had unscheduled power outages, but mine was when there was nothing going on with the only machine that was up. Win 7 noticed the bad shut down, but it came back up without any problem. I do have to recycle my modem and router every few weeks because of things that the ISP/cable company has done.

3 Kryten42 { 10.30.16 at 1:36 am }

IBM Networking gear has always been flaky. I could give you several examples from experience over the past couple decades or so.

Anyway, OT: Get your tinfoil hat out! 😉 😀

CIA Refuses To Release Reports On Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser

Actually, this is an interesting read. And there were known to be some high-level hushed conversations (and some documents) during my Mil/Int career. So, I hope they get a win! It will vindicate some people I knew and respected that were *dealt with* for digging into this.

4 Kryten42 { 10.30.16 at 1:45 am }

Hmmm. Relating to the above, part of my job was looking into this incident, and partly why a team was sent to the USA. Everything related to it was classified and/or vanished. Everyone involved was forced to sign a long-term NDA.

Ex-Prime Minister Regrets Memphis Visit : Fraser Says He Was Drugged, Robbed

It wasn’t a robbery. Memphis Police are being disingenuous. They *no longer* had a report of the incident.

5 Bryan { 10.30.16 at 8:31 pm }

Second part first: I wouldn’t have bothered with a formal report because the victim wouldn’t have been around for a follow up. Obvious tourist hooks up with a member of the negotiable affection guild and is drugged and rolled. You pass a field interview report to vice and watch for identifiable articles to show up. It has a conviction score of 0, so Memphis does not want it on their books.

Could have been a clumsy ‘honey pot’ set up, but the CIA wouldn’t have any records of that because ‘they don’t do anything in the United States’. Just ask them, they’ll tell you it would be illegal, so they don’t do it. 😈

6 Kryten42 { 10.31.16 at 2:56 am }

I knew you’d catch on quickly! 😉 And no, of course the CIA (or any of the 3-letter acronyms) would never violate the law or the USA’s sovereignty. Just as our ASIS (and other 3/4-letter acronyms) would never do such a thing. 😐

Funny… I realize now that of all of the organisations I ever worked for or was ever associated with, only two were (at the time) honest and ethical, and the only one’s that were quite competent. DIO & DSTO. I wonder if they still are. Probably not.

And so… all is right with the World once again. *shrug*

7 Bryan { 10.31.16 at 7:15 pm }

And lets not forget that neither would do anything really annoying to the other because the US and Australia are allies and friends forever ….

8 Kryten42 { 11.01.16 at 1:39 am }

😈 You really know how to make me laugh! And thanks, I really needed one today. After all, the Nation stops for a horse race today! We can do that, we can’t stop our Gov. being insane. People are the same everywhere, except maybe Finland. *shrug*

And my wonderful coffee grinder I’ve had for almost exactly 10 years died. Plugged it in, switched the mains on, and was greeted with the sound & smell of a motor frying. Not a bad run for something I paid $18 for at Starbucks and used every day. So, tomorrow I buy a new one. Bills be damned! I have priorities!

9 Kryten42 { 11.01.16 at 5:03 am }

Something you may find useful m8.

I’ve been using Anywhere Software’s B4A (BASIC for Android) for over a year, and it’s a very good implementation of BASIC with a built in IDE. Anyway, they released B4J v4.50 (BASIC for JAVA) aimed specifically at Windows Desktop/Server, Raspberry-PI, IoT. The compiled s/w (using the included app packager) will run on pretty much anything that runs JAVA. And it’s FREE (B4A is commercial, but wasn’t expensive anyway). It requires the Java JDK v8 (8u40+) & .Net Framework 4.5.2 (on Vista-W10). It’s well documented, has tutorials and the support (from the Dev & community) is quite good (I’ve found). 🙂

B4J – Modern “VB6 like” development tool for cross platform desktop, server and IoT solutions

Maybe you can come up with the next PI *Killer App*! 😉 😀

There is also a version for Arduino/ESP8266 Dev systems.

10 Kryten42 { 11.01.16 at 5:55 am }

Addendum: If you are using W10, the .NET should be v4.6.2 (part of the Anniv. update) or can be d/l from M$ & elsewhere. I prefer the Offline Installer releases. Also, the current JRE & JDK is 8u112. 🙂

I had a problem installing .NEW 4.6.2, which apparently is typical on Enterprise editions. See this comical *discussion* on M$ DevNet with a poor sod trying to get this resolved, and his (understandable) confusion when the M$ *Pro* apparently confuses W10 with XP! LOL

.NET Framework 4.6.2 installer fails on Windows 10 x64 ENTERPRISE edition

On a TechNet W10 forum thread, he got this:

Advpack.dll is a Dynamic Link Library file that is required by the Windows process used to read these .inf files.

I would suggest you to try the steps provided below and check if it helps.

Method 1: Try to run [System File Checker] SFC scan on the computer which would scan for corrupt system files on the computer and replace them.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310747

Method 2: If the issue persists then try to set your computer in Clean Boot state and then try to install the software.
By setting your system in clean boot state helps in identifying if any third party applications or startup items are causing the issue.
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

Note: After clean boot troubleshooting step, follow the “Steps to configure Windows to use a Normal startup state” in the provided link to return your computer to Normal startup mode.

Obviously cut/pasted his canned XP response! LOL

This is typical. I’ve had the same frustration with supposed m$ experts regarding the ongoing iSCSI initiator issues!

11 Bryan { 11.01.16 at 3:51 pm }

You should compile the the ‘official’ solutions for getting Win 7 to update after getting trashed by the Win 10 assault. You could publish it as an e-book, but I don’t know if you would file it under non-fiction or seriously cruel sarcasm.

I’m going to forward the B4J link to my brother. He enjoys messing with Java in retirement.

12 Kryten42 { 11.03.16 at 6:42 am }

Here’s a rare freebie of five products from Ashampoo for anyone interested from one of my favorite s/w companies for the past decade. These are normally commercial products available for free to anyone (because I’m a premium member). 🙂 They don’t have all the bell’s & whistles of the full retail versions, but most people don’t need or use all of them anyway.

Personal Ashampoo Gift

Free Products:
Burning Studio 2016 (64 MB)
WinOptimizer 2016 (27 MB)
Snap 2017 (50 MB)
Photo Commander 12 (258 MB)
Photo Optimizer 2016 (32 MB)

Anyone can d/l any or all of them. They work on Win7-10. During installation, just click on the “Request free activation key” button, give an email address to receive the key.

Bon Appétit! 😉 😀