About the Tech Support category

Got a tech problem? Post it here. Want to do someone a solid? Here’s the place.

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I don’t know if this is appropriate, but I’d like to suggest that people in this forum follow these guidelines when posting. The reason is that people who is helping do have the most relevant information, but also that people just visiting the forum post, even years afterwards, can find relevant information which might help them.

  • Provide a clear statement of the issue. What exactly are you trying, and what exactly is the outcome (error message, a box re-appeares, screen goes black etc…)?
  • What have you already attempted to do in order to solve the issue (actions) - and what exactly happens when you did? “Restarted machine, didn’t work” is normally not descriptive enough.
  • Provide setup and environment details, such as what devices, what operating system are you on…? Connecting with wi-fi or cellular? What is connected to your Mac? And maybe more important - has anything changed recently?
  • And please provide us with the answer! Even if you give up, it’s very much useful to actually know what has been done to resolve the issue, and how it affected it. This way everybody involved learns.
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Having worked in the tech support business for nearly 14 years I can say you’re right, that this is the right way to go.

When I teach new support engineers the first rule I always teach is “the three questions”:

  1. What is your intention?
  2. What action are you performing?
  3. What is the reaction?

With those 3 questions you’re 50% done with the support ticket :smiley: