reboot worked?

[noone]

This is something that has bothered me for almost a year now.

When I was first setting up the wireless internet router at my parents house, I kept getting an error message on the setup display. Basically it told me, "Woman, there is something wrong, stop trying to click things!"

So, I called tech support. (irrelevant to the story, it was a very Indian sounding guy with the name 'Bob' )

Talking with 'Bob' the first thing he tells me to do is reboot. I grumble, and do as he tells me.

It worked.

To this day, I can't figure out why restarting my computer would fix anything.

Does anyone in the tech world know? Or is this just a cruel ploy computers use to make us feel like fools when we can't think to do the obvious and wind up having to waste someone else's work time?

[Magpie]

Generally the reason that would work in that case is your computer basically got confused. When you start it up (such as, say, rebooting), it is metaphorically handed an information package. If you change out some of the brochures in that package it might hold on to the old one anyhow. It might lose some the them. After a while, it's a lot easier to just say "ok, it's not working, let's give it an entirely new package".

[noone]

Generally the reason that would work in that case is your computer basically got confused. When you start it up (such as, say, rebooting), it is metaphorically handed an information package. If you change out some of the brochures in that package it might hold on to the old one anyhow. It might lose some the them. After a while, it's a lot easier to just say "ok, it's not working, let's give it an entirely new package".

Thank you. I can use computers, but when it comes down to actual understanding, we're a bit like bears and sharks...

[lordlundar]

The general rule of computer support is "90% of all problems can be resolved by either a reboot or a reformat/rebuild."

All you did was wind up in the majority.

[Chromatix]

Windows is particularly susceptible to "getting confused" in this way. Don't ask me why.

I once had a big networking problem that turned out to be solved by rebooting the Linux machine acting as my firewall. Apparently the firewall stack had got broken and was blocking everything. Normally it's extremely reliable.