The user error was longer ago than initially thought.
Posted by O-U-T-S-I-D-E-R-S@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 19 comments
A friend's story not mine - so lacking in some detail as I wasn't there. Telling now as it was 20+ years ago and my friend is no longer with us.
The usual call we've all had - "The Database I've been using for years isn't working". Obviously they hadn't done anything so the fault was not with them. And even more obviously they had rebooted...
So my friend looked at the database and it worked fine as he expected (there would have been more than one person screaming otherwise). User wasn't using his phone so, as it was close, my friend wandered over.
Database opened on the user's machine. And yes, the user vaguely remembered the long way in but they never bothered with that as they'd found a quicker way that they wanted restored. When examining the data in Access, the ID10T had managed to create a local backup of the database - which hadn't been updated for about 2 years! His job was compiling reports which guided future planning and all his reports for years were based on hopelessly out of date information.
As for opening the out of date database copy - his computer just needed a reboot...
Ferro_Giconi@reddit
Before I was in charge of maintaining the Access databases at my job, we had wonderful things like Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Quality Database (2)(5)(1)(3).accdb with different people using different copies, some of them local.
I put an end to that by splitting the database up into front end and back end, and adding a macro to the database that prevents it from launching if it isn't launched from the correct directory with the correct file name using a launcher script I made which prevents people from ever seeing the actual location of the back end.
O-U-T-S-I-D-E-R-S@reddit (OP)
I do recall finding a file with the end tags being "final", "evan finaler" and "even finaller-er".
DreamerFi@reddit
or final_v2....
meitemark@reddit
Huh. My brain just combined. Final Destination and databases and out comes the movie Final Database where some enduser gets killed by one very big log file and red tape spills everywhere.
nymalous@reddit
...that's awesome!
If you know any savvy types, maybe a youtube parody could be made. (I'd watch it.)
Head_Razzmatazz7174@reddit
I had a coworker like that. Made copies of everything, couldn't find the first copy they made, did another copy from the database, lost THAT one. I worked as a help desk IT in a past life, and she asked me to help her find her last copy. I did a quick search from the old search bar that Windows used to have in the Start up menu. It came up with almost 2 dozen files with the document name and prefixes from 1-10 in multiple folders.
She had no idea how it happened. I saved the last file she had copied (as it had the most recent policy updates) into a new folder titled something like 'Policy Documents ONLY" and deleted the rest after making sure that there was no critical info in the previous copies. I also showed her how to save files into a folder of her choosing instead the default one that popped up.
TetSusKhal@reddit
dude, nice job getting rid of those "copy of" files. they really screw up everything. glad you figured out a way to make it easier...
Toratchi888@reddit
We have entered an endless recursion of backups.
EruditeLegume@reddit
Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1718/
Medical_Platypus_263@reddit
Worked at a large insurance company that produced over 200 different management reports a month. Hard copy as this was the early 90's. My job was to audit the use of the reports in order to trim down printing queueing on the AS400. (40 branches and 120+ managers and directors) So we asked each of them "What reports do you personally use?" with the list of reports. (Yes I know, rookie mistake) Replies came in with most of the reports marked as being used. Had to go back for a second round. "What do you do with the report?" Replies varied from, "O, I file it here", "Copy this total to a spreadsheet", "Send it to the Regional Manager (Who also prints it) and my favourite "Look at it". Reduced the reports to less than 10 with only half running on the dot matrix printers...
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
Gah, local files.
I started a job this year in which large amounts of master data are stored in Excel. On Sharepoint. Used by multiple people at once. Recently, one of the files has developed an odd corruption - periodically, lookup formulae that pointed to a related workbook on the Sharepoint directory instead started pointing to a copy on a D: drive. No-one in the (UK) office has a D: drive - everything goes into Sharepoint, or OneDrive.
After a few weeks of this, we found out the culprit. One of my team was running a daily process that involved using a local copy of the related workbook. He sometimes had the other file open at the same time. When he did, and someone (he or another user) made a change to it, it recalculated. This caused it to pick up his local path for the linked workbook, which over-wrote the formulae.
We have impressed upon him the need to have only one file open at a time!
blind_ninja_guy@reddit
If only microslop could build decent software.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
There's a case to be made for using the appropriae software, though. In this case, Excel ain't it!
AngryCod@reddit
And nobody noticed, which means nobody was reading the reports, which means the entire process was a huge waste of time.
Gold-Mikeboy@reddit
it’s wild how often that kind of oversight happens. Makes you wonder how many other crucial reports are based on outdated info and no one’s caught it
Steve061@reddit
Had a colleague who started addending a message that requested anyone reading the report to call him. After a few months of no phone calls he just started copying and pasting the old report into the new one. Never got a complaint or query.
4ShotMan@reddit
In my first month in a job, a guy was fired for copy-pasting test results from the same day for 5+ months. It was only discovered when he didn't reproduce a bug that broke whole test workflow for the entire project and reported normal results. Many such cases in our corporate world.
Afraid_Baseball_3962@reddit
My then-boss several jobs ago told me about another employee who they had to force to take vacation time (first time in a few years). The job involved manually remoting into customer servers, downloading a bunch of logs daily, and reviewing them. This guy had been editing the same set of logs for months (years?) and saving them with a different date. After they figured it out, boss called him during his vacation and told him he'd only need to come back for one day to collect his things.
Narrow-Dog-7218@reddit
Reminds me of one I did. Started a new job and was tasked with moving a SQL database off an aging SQL 2000 database and on to the new SQL 2016. It was some kind of ingredient weighing scale which produced reports through Report Server. It was stressed to me how utterly important this was, as the reports were vital. I got the move done and reports ran without issue and I left it at that.
A few months later I went to check it was still working and was concerned that the data was not there in the reports. It seems there should have been a script to inject data from txt files into the database. I quickly adjusted the script (the files were piled up waiting) and injected the data. Reports were all up to date again.
No one noticed.