This started as an inside joke that grew over my 34 years in IT. You know, what the IT support people behind the scenes joke about when they see the same user stupidity over and over again. It's a good way to release the tension, especially when you've had one of these facepalm moments for the thirtieth time.
But, it evolved into a real checklist that I give to relatively new IT people. And it serves as a reminder even for the seasoned IT people, even myself from time to time. This list does not exist because every user makes these mistakes -- even we make these mistakes from time to time -- but, to quickly eliminate these easily-overlooked things as possible causes for a problem, and avoid frustrating both us and the user.
And, in case you were wondering, every one of these troubleshooting items was added to this list because we, amazingly, saw it happen with a user in everyday support situations, repeatedly confounding us until we would figure it out. Just like big red warnings on everyday consumer items, if it's there, some customer somewhere really did something to require the warning be added to the product. Coincidentally, these are all things that competent users check themselves, which is why the competent users rarely contact us. And, believe it or not, that's what we all want.
So, let's start with hardware:
Is it plugged in? (well, that's embarrassing)
Yes, "check the power connections", this is something we need to mentally think about when we first start talking to someone about a problem they're having with some hardware. Usually we'll say something like "Can you check that the the power cord is securely and fully pushed into it?"
You have to have them check the power cable all the way to the wall or wherever it's plugged in, including if it has a power supply in the middle, where a power cable also plugs into that. Having a power cable slide partly out of a power supply on the floor or in the back of the device is very common.
Is it turned on? (it was before)
Yes, "check those lights", you have to make the user look at the power lights on the device, which they may not have even looked at for many reasons. It could be facing away from them, it could be under a pile of who-knows-what under their desk, etc.
I had this literally happen at a customer just yesterday. They went for days, not being able to use their wireless or even see the wireless networks it should have been broadcasting. I found the problem because a user had a wireless-only VoIP phone that hadn't been able to connect for days, it could see another wireless network everyone was using, but it's difficult to configure a new wireless network. I went to power cycle the missing wireless access point, then I found the power button was pushed out, apparently because one time someone power cycled it, they had pushed the power button "out" or off and never pushed it back "in" or on. Worked fine after that.
Is it connected? (I think so)
Yes, the support session may start with "I can't connect to the server", but you have to have the user check if they are actually connected to the network by checking the ethernet cable or the wireless status icon.
And, this also applies to any device, really. After "is it plugged in" and "is it on", this is the number one reason for a general support issue. The monitor wasn't plugged into the computer, the scanner wasn't plugged into the network with the ethernet cable, the network switch the printer was plugged into wasn't plugged into the network or the wall. Basically, check every cable, or cable related to the problem, from end to end to make sure it is not disconnected.
Is it the right cable? (well, it fits)
Oh yes, how many times has this happened. Well, it is #4 on the list. Sometimes people will unplug a cable to move something, then jam it into a port on a device that it was never meant to plug into and will never do any good with. This is how I discovered that a USB-A connector on a USB cable fits perfectly into an ethernet RJ-45 port. Try it yourself. It's like pushing a rectangular peg into a square hole, it might just work.
This also forces them to check that the cables are plugged in, if they missed one or more in the previous step. And there are less obvious situations that can cause a user to call us, like the speaker cable is plugged into a mic port, which is identical, VoIP phones often have two ethernet ports, one for the network and one for the PC, etc.
Have you power cycled or rebooted it? (I rebooted it three times like you said)
Yes, this is something that people learn after a few calls. Sometimes your device just needs to be rebooted, and that's the quickest solution. And sometimes, on a related note, signing out of your device will more quickly solve the problem, or you need to specifically shut down the device (but not unplug it for 30 seconds) and start it back up.
And, as I told a user before, any, and I mean ANY support person who tells you to restart your device (or power cycle it) two or more times and to call them back is not trying to help you, but trying to get rid of you so you call back and talk to someone else. There is literally no problem that will be fixed by your restarting a device multiple times exactly the same way. This is also an inside joke so when you do call back and tell the new support person that you restarted your computer two or three times like the previous person told you, then they know you are abusive, extremely frustrating, or particularly dense.
And if it's not hardware-related, move onto software:
Is it installed? (well, I just uninstalled/deleted that other thing, so...)
Yes, how could this be? How could you have a problem with an application that isn't even installed on your computer? It happens, believe me. Well, someone might need the software installed, and that's the problem, right? No, I'm talking about people who say an application is installed, they can't find it, and upon investigation, we find out it is not installed. So, usually this is related to user confusion, but sometimes they somehow remove an application and either forget about it or really didn't know what they were doing. Or they might remove one application, not knowing another application requires it.
I even had a supposedly competent IT person occupy an hour of my time as we tried to figure out why he couldn't uninstall antivirus software on a user's computer, only to find out that it had already uninstalled itself (as is normal, but he was saying it was not working). A shortcut was left behind and he didn't know how use it to find its install location to figure out that there was nothing there. He had not restarted the computer to remove the related services he saw and was trying to remove, as he was previously told. I guess he should have been told to restart the computer three times.
Is it running? (yeah, it was)
Wow, yes, I think this actually happens at least once a month. My goodness, do you think that application's ability to email something might depend on your mail application (Outlook) actually running? You know, look down at the bottom of the screen and check to make sure it is there and shows it is running. Maybe click on it and check if it's trying to tell you there's a problem.
Now, of course, we don't think this way if this happens one time with a user. Everyone learns something like this one time. This is only on this list because more than a few users simply don't remember to check this or just look to make sure the application is running.
Is it updated? (how do I check that?)
This is really a bottom-of-the-list thing, but needs to be on the list, because it's a basic troubleshooting item.
Maybe the problem software hasn't been updated for over three years. Well, there's your problem, and 90% of the time, it really is. Maybe you have hours of Windows updates waiting to be installed, but today this is only a problem when the update process is somehow broken, so checking this forces everyone to find this possible problem. Maybe the software just doesn't update itself, the user has never checked, and the operating system (Mac or Windows) has updated to the point that the un-updated software just doesn't work or is buggy? Or maybe some software you never use and was installed and never updated years ago is interfering with newer software you use? That happens more often on Windows with interdependent libraries.