Tech support at UKC
Blogging of my first days at uni has been delayed by problems connecting to the network… And the resulting conversation with tech support:
From: shish To: tech support Your SBS signup form for linux users [1] has typos[2] that make it impossible to submit; the resulting page is a back trace of a nullpointerexception[3]. I guessed the URL of the windows version of the form and filled that one in instead, and it works fine (it even sent me the correct download, CSA.sh). The fix is to go through the form and give the elements their proper names (eg, change "username0" to "username") [1] http://reg-kent.org:8080/registration/register-linux.html [2] It looks like someone copy & pasted the form in a WYSIWYG editor -- all the relevant elements had zeroes after them, which is a standard way of keeping unique element IDs after copy & pasting... [3] I would guess somebody did something like form["username"].value, without first making sure that the "username" element was POSTed :-/
A rather simple problem, and I even took the time to work out why things were broken, and explain how to fix them in easy to understand terms. The result?
From: Tech support To: Shish Thanks for your e-mail. You need to have Java turned on in order to see the page correctly and submit it.
Gah, a boilerplate response, and an incorrect one at that, on a variety of levels — there is no java on the page, so enabling it won’t make any difference. I would assume he meant javascript (something totally different, the name is coincidence), but that is inappropriate too, since the problem is nothing to do with the script (which works fine in my already javascript enabled browser).
So I reply again, in even simpler terms, and explain why the previous response was wrong:
No I don't; there is no java on that page. There is javascript (which is a different thing altogether), and I do have that enabled. I know my browser works fine since I can use the version of the page designed for windows users. To repeat: The problem is that the linux version of the page has errors in its code that cause the values entered to be given the wrong names. For example, the linux username box is called "username0", and doesn't work, whereas the windows and mac pages have called the box "username" and they work fine. If I download the registration page and change the name of the box myself, that works too. It's a very simple problem with a very simple solution; you could probably fix it in less time than it would take to send another useless boilerplate message :P
A response?
Thanks for your e-mail. You need to have Java turned on in order to see the page correctly and submit it.
Argh.
September 18th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Defeated the Techs already; and its still fresher’s week…
September 18th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
So, I’m thinking that they just have an auto-responder? Nobody could be that stupid.
September 18th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
I would like to think that’s it’s automatic, but the same support guy also gives me similarly braindead responses to problems I would assume too odd to be boilerplated. Like, he tells me that the reason I have access to several people’s email accounts (as subfolders of mine, in “shared folders/user/[username]“) is because they recycle email accounts without cleaning the old contents. Compare the explanation from a guy who I know has a clue: people sometimes manage to accidentally set their folders to shared access. Although the latter is strange, I find it far more believable…
ED: also, he fails English: “We re-use e-mail addresses that have not be used for a few years, so this is way you may see e-mail in the account already.”
September 19th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Sorry to say you where unfortunet enough to get a responce from a less then competant member of the “full time staff” he is one that is not even capable of writing html code let alone debuging it. The error you set forward was noticed in the day and has been “hopefully” correct now. The system is a brand new system the the university in the last week and there are a few teething problems. They should be mostly sorted out this week. The system has still provied students with being able to have access to the internet soon then previous years and is mostly a success, and the few problems like the one you have listed above should be ironed out in a few days.
September 21st, 2006 at 10:19 am
So will UKC give you a part-time job teaching computer science to their computing support staff in between your computer science lectures? Could get interesting if they did. You could end up teaching yourself, but it would get embarrassing if you asked yourself a question that you couldn’t answer…………
December 12th, 2006 at 1:07 am
I’ve just read this again and it still makes me want to cry that that was your first encounter with UKC Support Staff. We’re not all that clueless… honest :|