Spent 6 hours chasing a network drop until I tried the dumbest thing

Been fighting a weird intermittent drop on a client's network over in Oakville for about a week. Did all the usual stuff. Swapped cables, checked the switch ports, ran ping tests for hours. Turned out the patch cable from the wall plate to their VOIP phone was loosely crimped on one end. Like the little plastic tab was broken off and it just barely made contact unless the phone sat at exactly the right angle. I felt like a total idiot. Has anyone else had a fix that simple after way too much troubleshooting?

3 comments

3 Comments

ryan_shah385d ago

Jumped on a similar one last month. Client said their printer kept dropping off the network every time someone walked past the desk. I spent two hours checking signal interference, redoing cable runs, even swapped the switch port. Turned out the ethernet cable was looped around the leg of the desk and someone's foot would nudge it just enough to disconnect. Plugged it in properly and cable tied it out of the way. Fixed. Felt like a proper plonker after all that.

hannah4005d ago

Classic, always check the physical stuff first, learned that the hard way too.

paul_taylor215d ago

Oh man, ryan_shah38, that desk leg cable story is painfully relatable. I think you meant "plugged it in properly" but that cable was probably already plugged in - the issue was more about it getting snagged, right? That's what gets me about these fixes, they're so obvious once you see them but you convince yourself it has to be something deeper. And yeah, @hannah400 is spot on about checking physical stuff first. I've had a similar one with a wall jack where the keystone wasn't fully seated. Four hours of packet captures before I noticed the jack wiggling. The simple stuff always makes you feel like a proper idiot when it's done.