My wife’s computer was acting up with a Zoom recording, in that she could no longer maximize the screen. (Watching a lecture for an online class)

I couldn’t figure it out and called my oldest son, who has two masters degrees in computer science. He said to turn it off and back on, and indeed that fixed the problem.

I just find it amusing that this is his standard advice. And a little astonished at how often it works.

Personally, I never turn off my desktop machine. It hibernates when not in use, so its always just a click to wake it up.

Generally a computer problem is a software screwup (says the guy who was a software engineer in a prior life). It could be a problem in the application (Zoom in this case), maybe the web browser if Zoom launched from the browser, or even an internal screwup in the operating system. Turning it off and turning it back on (hopefully doing an orderly shutdown first) restarts the operating system, then you restart whatever applications you are using, so everything is starting from scratch. Memory leaks, corrupted pointers, etc are all “fixed” by restarting. This isn’t to say the same problem can’t return over time (hey, if there is a bug in the software, there is a bug in the software. And probably there are several), but at least you are starting fresh.

Personally, I try to be a little more surgical. First, I just restart the app that I believe is the problem, then cast a wider net if necessary, but the old “Turn it off and back on” does work.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
I just find it amusing that this is his standard advice. And a little astonished at how often it works.

I wonder if he watched the British comedy series "The IT Crowd". I have watched them all.............

PC

Many programs (most?) are not good about cleaning up after themselves. Bits of memory here and there they no longer need, but don't relinquish, etc. Or they crash and don't get to do their closedown housekeeping. "tasks" still running after you exit the program.

But, close it all down and restart the machine and it's clean-slate time, baby.

Worth a shot on anything with firmware, software and a power connector or battery. Car not recognizing your phone? Cell phone naval-gazing? PC/Mac off in the weeds? Printer not showing on the network? CATV box forgot how to shovel video into the TV? Camera not recognizing the lens? Mobile phone showing strangely slow net connection?

Power-cycling is cheap, easy and works a staggering percentage of the time undesired behavior is seen in software-driven devices.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
I just find it amusing that this is his standard advice. And a little astonished at how often it works.

It works because so much software is so poorly-designed and -written. IOW: Most software is utter crap.

There's a saying in the software industry: "If buildings were built the way software is written, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization."

Think about that the next time you're travelling down the road in your high-tech; computer-controlled motor vehicle at 70 MPH or better, stuffed into a fly-by-wire aluminum tube up at thirty-thousand feet, or casting a vote in an important election

Computer says: "No..."

“If I’m ever on life support unplug me. Then plug me back in. See if that works.”

Hello, IT?
Have you tried turning it off & on again?

Season 1 of The IT Crowd was great.

It is a sign of a poorly written OS that re-initialization is required to perform routine operations after it has been running for some time. Just my opinion. I will admit that this cancer seems to have infected recent versions of macOS as well as those long-suffering products from Redmond.

If the software engineers cannot get that right, what other errors have they made in the areas of security, correctness, etc?

For background, I'm accustomed to systems running for years, or even decades with no reboots required other than for major system upgrades, hardware changes, and the like.

I have my desktop on almost every day, but I turn it on in the morning, and shut it off after dinner. I rarely let it run for days without a reboot.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
I have my desktop on almost every day, but I turn it on in the morning, and shut it off after dinner. I rarely let it run for days without a reboot.

If you leave it on all the time and automatic updates is enabled, it will reboot itself whenever it needs to.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
Many programs (most?) are not good about cleaning up after themselves. Bits of memory here and there they no longer need, but don't relinquish, etc. Or they crash and don't get to do their closedown housekeeping. "tasks" still running after you exit the program.

But, close it all down and restart the machine and it's clean-slate time, baby.

Worth a shot on anything with firmware, software and a power connector or battery. Car not recognizing your phone? Cell phone naval-gazing? PC/Mac off in the weeds? Printer not showing on the network? CATV box forgot how to shovel video into the TV? Camera not recognizing the lens? Mobile phone showing strangely slow net connection?

Power-cycling is cheap, easy and works a staggering percentage of the time undesired behavior is seen in software-driven devices.

Speaking as a retired electronic engineer/programmer, this is excellent advice.

I just solved a problem with my iPhone in just this way also, but that's hardly surprising since an iPhone is nothing but a sophisticated computer.

I work with very high end video equipment, stuff that costs millions. Turn it off and on again is legit advice even with the stuff I use. In fact I often reboot things every morning just to keep problems from cropping up.

I just had to do this to my router after an internet outage.
Works great now.
If I could speak a foreign language I'd be an international expert on the subject.
O/I is the international symbol anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

I'm accustomed to systems running for years, or even decades with no reboots required other than for major system upgrades, hardware changes, and the like.

My introduction to software design was with telephone Central Office switching systems, in the 1960s. The design goal for these systems was a total cumulative down-time not to exceed two hours during a 40 year service life. Because this was my introduction to software design, I was really surprised when I encountered other stuff that was nowhere near this anal about error handling.

I used to leave my computer on 24/7. Since having to replace two hard drives, I now turn it off before going to bed. No problems since then.

quote:

Originally posted by PCWyoming:

I wonder if he watched the British comedy series "The IT Crowd". I have watched them all.............

PC

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I just had to do this to my router after an internet outage.
Works great now.
If I could speak a foreign language I'd be an international expert on the subject.
O/I is the international symbol anyway.

Years ago, a chinese guy came to my office with a screwed up computer. W7 in chinese?
The guy spoke little Spanish and no English so he couldn’t even tell me what the error messages said. Looked under the hood and it was our basic love/hate MS Windows. Solved the issue but couldn’t expkain to the guy either. This was way before the Logmein days.

And I do speak/understand a little bendable!

0-0

I like the advice this forum gives,my problem with the power flickering is, I am always re logging all my shit on several times,sometimes in one day.