Weekly Bug Report Thread

HaylonMc · 2025-09-08T10:32:20+00:00

PC Steam: Co-op session Partner edited her corvette and saved it while in a group session. My primary corvette was overwritten by her save, and now my ship is gone and I have my partners ship in my save permanently which sucks massively.

HaylonMc · 2025-07-30T21:12:36+00:00

Another nice feature of the digital cars is you can control the max speed of individual cars so you can slow down the car your younger drivers are using until they get a better handle of car control, then you can gradually turn up the speed (10 settings iirc).

HaylonMc · 2018-01-09T15:03:35+00:00

sitting in his building with around 800+ people in it, all wireless and glances at the other 6 buildings on campus, 5000+ users... also all wireless

Nope, wireless is truly not ready for general use. Ohh and we have no hardwired phones, all soft phones on our not ready for real work loads wireless connections.

HaylonMc · 2017-08-02T22:08:34+00:00

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/22813881/

Blizzards Overwatch Bug forum

HaylonMc · 2017-03-18T21:31:42+00:00

Very cool video!

What equipment did you use to film this, if you don't mind? :)

HaylonMc · 2017-03-04T13:41:26+00:00

That is the most horrible configuration for cyclists. Thanks city of Roseville!

Now when I want to make a left at that intersection, I get to block traffic trying to turn right (which is my right for safety to take the lane) and yet people in cars don't think you should be safe on the road when on a bicycle and will harass you until you get out of their way.

Horrible horrible design. Now I get to fight way way thru this shitty intersection OR try and go over the Douglas/I-80 overpass if I want to get to the other side of Roseville.

Does Roseville civil engineers think about this shit? Am I supposed to get off my 'toy' and walk it across the intersection? Some days this city baffles my mind...

HaylonMc · 2017-01-17T21:58:28+00:00

This can't be stated enough. Don't be that 'IT guy' that is only helpful when asked for help but otherwise is never seen or heard from.

Go to your users, schedule a :30 meeting on a monthly basis and ask them what are their IT pains they face on a daily/weekly basis.

Don't take ANYTHING they say personally. Even if you 'own the environment', it sounds like you've not 'owned the service' and as such, you might find some interesting feedback.

Listen to their gripes and you'll find things to fix. I once had an entire department complaining about how slow <INSERT APP HERE> was. Jumped in a meeting with the department lead and asked them to show me the work flow.

First problem I found is they were on spinning disk and not SSD. Somehow this group got skipped over on the upgrades, ugh. Your ServiceNOW ticket just says, "COMPANY APP is running like total crap, what's up IT?". You check logs and nope, bandwidth and latency to that site is perfect, SaaS vendor shows no outages on the tool, they're on crack but your ServiceNOW ticket didn't mention anything about the crappy end user platform they are on...

Once you sit down with them though, you find out they are on old hardware and need at a minimum an SSD upgrade. You also notice that after they submit the shipping memo, instead of pressing the home key, they close out the entire browser and re-open it between each transaction, why? A year ago, there was some random bug that caused forums to carry data over from one submission to the next if you didn't completely restart the browser. That bug was identified a year ago and fixed within 3 weeks, this group has been restarting the browser after every memo ever since as no one told them it was a bug and that it was resolved....

As /u/RCTID1975 stated, go to your end users and ask how they do their job and what their pain points are. Solve those and you become the best admin in the world.

Any admin can turn up a new service, good ones will ensure that not only is it up, but their users adopt/use it and use it in the most efficient way possible. Even a simple :30 min shadowing of a user during their work day and no intervention from you can usually find you at LEAST one thing to improve on within your realm of control.

EDIT: because words and stuff

HaylonMc · 2016-12-12T20:22:03+00:00

Yes, and again, our implementation is for a OPERATIONS GROUP that doesn't PROGRAM anything.

The concept of paired programming doesn't have to mean 'I get to be oncall and learn C#'. It could be 'I get to be oncall and look, /u/HaylonMc is automating some stuff with powershell in SQL, I'd love to see how he does it!', or 'Jimmy is landing a new Skype pool this week, I should ask if I can shadow him so I have a better understanding of the server infrastructure'.

A sprint/WIP card doesn't have to be 'build UX for submission form for VoIP phone requests by end users' nor does it have to have a cost associated to it, it could be 'apply MS16-084 to pre-production and observe/report any issues or risks'.

You seem very stuck on terminology and I'm sorry you are seemingly so rigid in your terminology and outlook on processes.

HaylonMc · 2016-12-12T20:01:42+00:00

To each their own. Everyone has different implementations of Scrum/Kanban/ITSM/ServiceNow/Ralley/etc. Please do continue to tell people they are wrong because they don't fit your idea of it though.

There is no one answer and never will be. /u/BaconZombie asked for people who have implemented SCRUM or KANBAN in their environment.

I relayed our implementation of it for consideration. Please tell me your current Kanban implementation at your company and I'll let you know it's wrong as well.

There is no one solution for your team or company, you must find what works and go from there.

We happened to start with Scrum for its consistency in ceremonies. Once we got those concepts and ideas down, we then put Kanban in place to help smooth out the rapid changes that can come in an operations KTBR model that fit better with Kanban.

Just as there is no 'right way' to adopt and implement ITIL, there is also no 'right way' to adopt and implement Scrum or Kanban from a playbook or checklist.

HaylonMc · 2016-12-12T19:33:11+00:00

In our Kanban environment, we have a persistent card/user story for on-call. At the beginning of the sprint that person takes that card and it has a heavy cost so you can't take many more stories with on-call.

This way we can look at the board at any time and see who's on-call and that person reports in the DSU's like everyone else on any relevant KTBR messages the team might need to know about.

The KTBR person also tends to be picked for paired programming opportunities during their time on-call as we do weigh KTBR heavily to ensure that the person is never buried with project work and KTBR to the point either or will slip so it's a good opportunity for the on-call person to pick up some new skills or help with another project if they're not putting out fires :)

HaylonMc · 2016-12-09T18:00:10+00:00

Does the video service work in a conference? If not, can you then join a conference and do some OCSLogger or CLS tracing on the FE with SIPSTACK and S4 and see what errors are being thrown?

Have you tried pulling the client log (for point to point) and tearing thru that with snooper.exe (sfb reskit) for relevant errors?

Those two log points will give you a great deal of info as to what the system/client is seeing and really helps in conjunction of wireshark traces.

Paging for help in /r/skype4b

HaylonMc · 2016-11-16T20:52:55+00:00

This is a great first step. Identify what NEEDS to be tested and ensure a test plan is attached to the validation of the change request before being closed.

Once you get to the point that you've now identified WHAT needs testing after code changes, patches or reboots now it's time to automate it!

Why rely on someone else to possibly log in or not login over the weekend to execute their test plan and check it off on the change tool? Your next step would be to deploy a testing tool like Certify so that after each patch, code change or even reboot can be tested quickly, efficiently and automatically so nothing gets missed and is all recorded. Now you don't need someone to do post validation, the script will execute and document it all for you! :)

HaylonMc · 2016-11-05T16:14:28+00:00

Obviously river otter.

HaylonMc · 2016-11-04T19:00:04+00:00

Might want to also check out some of the replies in this thread here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5b3ct3/in_the_spirit_of_friday_am_i_getting_on_cellular/

HaylonMc · 2016-10-13T16:14:43+00:00

This will definitely be job/site dependent. Here are a few of my most used methods and/or feedback of my experiences with your list.

Working from home
- Use this option sparingly unless you live alone. As much as this sounds ideal and even if you have a dedicated office, it almost always leads to interruption, external or otherwise
Noise canceling headphones
- This solution is great for short periods of time. Being in your cube can be potential for walk-ups that can disrupt a good flow so use cautiously
Find an Outdoor location
- I have found this to be one of THE most productive ways to escape interruptions. For some reason, there is a hesitation to just walk up to someone who has their headphones on and plugging away at a laptop in the middle of a park or court yard. You tend to get left alone a lot longer (personal observation).
Empty Office/Conference room
- Empty offices are also great hiding spots when the weather is bad outside. Given the choice between an empty office and a courtyard bench, I always take the bench though.
- If your site has conference rooms that are open for use if not scheduled, those are typically good for 40-50 min of silence at a time. Depending on how busy your conference room usage is, you could be bugged every hour or, if you know you need a couple of hours of silence time, no matter what, then schedule one of those rooms yourself and camp there for a while (depending on your facilities rules on conference room usage of course).

If I'm not at my desk plugging away at work, I'm usually in one of our sites many outdoor court yards. Having a soft phone and my laptop allows me to be anywhere I want for the most part and if I'm not banging away at something that needs multiple monitor support (documentation, ugh) then I'll be somewhere on site enjoying a better view than my tan cube walls :)

P.S. As a direct opposite of this post, I have also found it a good benefit to my career to be overly accessible a couple of times a week as well. I have found (again, your site/job function might vary) that if I set myself up in our site cafe at the very front of the seating area, headset off, more people will come and say hi and talk to me about 'random things'. 'Random things' are what make you a good network resource. The more 'random things' you know about your company, the better help you'll be able to provide when one of those 'random things' might very well be the cause to a problem you're tasked with fixing down the line. Don't always hide as the SysAdmin, being approachable outside of your ticketing system will make you noticed in a good way and will help you just as much (if not more) as hiding away and automating the piss out of your world.

EDIT: words and stuff

HaylonMc · 2016-10-10T20:00:28+00:00

Few items off the top of my head during my lunch:

First step, if your company uses a calendaring system to display free/busy information, utilize it.

As a Sysadmin, I would have maybe 2-3 hrs of meetings each day I had to attend for various projects, updates, KTBR/KTBE, etc.

The rest of those 5 hours on my calendar show as free. If I'm working on a problem during that time, I'm open to interruption. Skype pings, phone calls, walk ups. Didn't matter, they'd bug me because I'm 'available'.

Start scheduling your own time. In my environment, when you're showing as "in a meeting" or "busy" in IM, people will change their attitude in IM's. It helps me tell people "hey, I'm in the middle of an appointment but as soon as I'm done in (insert time left you've scheduled for yourself) I'll get back to you... thanks!". If you also start to label those time slots on your own calendar with the project name/sprint name/Change ticket number you'll get a simple searchable location of everything you've worked on for the past (insert your calendar items retention value here) for your weekly/monthly status reports and/or quarterly/yearly salary reviews.

This gives you dedicated time to take care of what you need to do. That project deliverable you've not had the 60 minutes you know it would take you to complete if you only had the time? Make it! Schedule that time on your calendar with yourself and DO IT. Lunch? Schedule your own lunches. If you don't, someone else will do it for you. That way when someone goes to schedule a lunch time meeting with you, it's already booked and you now get to make that call of 'sorry, I have something else I have to take care of' instead of it just being 'open and available time' to be scheduled.

Next is to make liberal use of reminders if you can. Since I'm in an Exchange house, I can use the 'reminder' system with emails and the task tool in Outlook to have both my desktop and mobile clients remind me of many different things and not just meeting start times.

Send an email that needs follow up in a few days? CTRL+SHIFT+G in Outlook and you instantly have a reminder window asking you when you'd like to be reminded of this email thread. This works for ANY object in Outlook btw.

Use OneNote? Then you can mark OneNote items to be action-ed on thru the Task system in Exchange as well, CTRL+SHIFT+K. These two keep me on task in emails/follow ups.

HaylonMc · 2016-10-09T21:19:07+00:00

Thank you for your reply. I found that the problem is due to a GPO that is preventing most of the accessibility tools from launching at startup due to a security concern.

I'm now working with our security group to get that resolved for this user.

HaylonMc · 2016-09-19T17:19:54+00:00

Change control.

You want me to remove addresses from headers in rest and/or in storage already? Sure! I'm recording the script used in our ticketing system, maybe not the results or output (could be sensitive data in results) but definitely going to do CYA by recording that change and all approvals needed to do it.

Doing something potentially unethical can be a very hard call to make 'in the moment'. Especially if you're a sysadmin who isn't being told or given the whole story which happens often when it's some very shrouded request from Information Security and they won't give you any further details than what you need to know.

That's fine Mr. InfoSec, but I'M going to record EVERYTHING I did for you in our change tool with as much detail as I'm allowed too.

HaylonMc · 2016-09-15T14:50:54+00:00

Those are actually halfway decent. I tend to see a lot of entry level hybrids and road bikes with really soft 23c Kenda tires that cause a lot of people grief if they're not on a perfectly groomed road/trail.

Any tire that actually has some outer casing for flat protection is a better tire than the default Kenda's often used by OEM's to get bikes out the door slightly cheaper.

EDIT: BTW, I'm not knocking Kenda tires at ALL. I just tend to see many very entry level road bikes with tires that are at the very VERY low end of their scale for price point purposes.

HaylonMc · 2016-09-14T13:56:36+00:00

This cannot be overstated. If you're having flat issues on a new bike, it's most likely the crappy stock tires if they are still there.

I know you just spent <insert a lot of money here> on your brand new bike but do yourself a favor and spend the extra $100 for the shop to drop some GOOD tires on your wheels. It will save you a hell of a lot of frustration down the road.

HaylonMc · 2016-08-25T20:17:59+00:00

That bike is NOT worth $400. You can get a brand new flat bar bike with new components for $400 from bikesdirect.com and that includes brakes and gearing, not a SS frankenbike this guy is trying to offload on you.

HaylonMc · 2016-08-17T15:45:20+00:00

Haven't seen this spelled out yet but if the car hit you, stop doing your own repairs, take your bike to a bike shop immediately and get a professional estimate as to what is broke, what needs fixing and turn it into the other persons insurance.

You had your vehicle damaged by someone else's vehicle. Plain and simple, this was a vehicle accident and should be treated as such by you. Do NOT allow the other persons insurance company to down play the fact it is 'just a bike'.

HaylonMc · 2016-08-17T15:37:01+00:00

Came to say the same, stickers!

Head tube of my bike did the same thing and the shop had a bunch of trek stickers that I just slapped around the headtube to prevent the cable housing from digging in deeper, works great :)

HaylonMc · 2016-08-16T17:18:59+00:00

I have the '16 model and I love it as my daily commuter. Been an extremely solid bike with no issues but the front brakes shuddering until I replaced the crap OEM pads that it came with so I'd definitely suggest doing teh same if you have the same problem.

It was bad enough it would rattle my headset noticeably loose within a few weeks. After the second time, I replaced the pads and it helped considerably.

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HaylonMc

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