Tag: troubleshooting

Learnings from spending the evening troubleshooting Microsoft Office on a new MacBook

Carl Setzer
abstract apple art black and white

A friend of mine has one of the latest MacBook pros. It is a rather lovely machine! But it had a weird glitch when we tried to install Office. It threw this error:

“The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.”

A remarkably unhelpful message, if I say so myself. First guess: corrupted download file. So I deleted the pkg file (it’s the Mac software installation package), redownloaded it, attempted to reinstall it, and got the same error.

Ok, delete the pkg file again, empty the trash, rebooted, downloaded it again, started the installation, got the SAME error message. Now I’m puzzled. So, time to google it. And, bless the google gods, I found this quickly.

Solution for “The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail”

I was a bit suspicious, though, when the answer was a link to another site.

Control access to files and folders on Mac

However, this was spot on. It was a rather simple issue. I needed to grant access to the download folder to the Installer. Just a few commands to enter and, boom, Office was able to install.

  1. Choose Apple menu
  2. System Settings, then click Privacy & Security
  3. In the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down) click Files and Folders.
  4. For each app in the list, turn the ability to access files and folders in specific locations on or off. In this case, “Installer”

I hope you don’t have this issue, but if you do, may this grant you peace after your frustrations.

Need To Reduce A Video’s Size? VLC’s Got You!

Carl Setzer

I’ve used VLCfor years, since it’s a powerful video player (has most every codec out there…can play pretty much anything), but wasn’t aware I could use it to change formats or compress files. As I had some huge videos to upload to a WordPress site (which limits me to 500 MB…even after editing the php.ini file), I explored ways to shrink the files. Of course, I came up with a bunch of pay options. But, buried below the fold (fortunately on page 1 of SERP) was this video. And, boom, problem solved! I loved VLC before, and an am even bigger fan now.

Google Tip: Deleting Old Google Sign-In Accounts

Carl Setzer

As many of you know, I just left a job. Part of my process for that is clearing out any data I’ve captured. One thing I always need to do is clear out any of the old Google accounts I’ve used. Like what you see in this view: 

 

The first step to getting rid of the other screens is to sign out of everything:

Next, go to the login screen, which will now look like this:

Click on “Remove an account”, and you’ll be able to choose the account(s) to remove from the screen. And, boom, it’ll be nice and clean for the next log-in.

My son’s blasted phone

Carl Setzer2 Comments

Hey there, my tech-savvy friends, my son has an original Pixel, which he loves. However, it’s picked up an annoying glitch. When anyone calls it, the answering screen doesn’t come up. It’s physically impossible to answer it; nothing there at all. Oddly, the phone rings and vibrates, just nothing else.

Here are some key details:

  • Do Not Disturb isn’t on.
  • The phone settings screen is greyed out (I think this is significant, but not able to drill down any further).
  • He can answer calls with a bluetooth headset (tapping “answer” there).
  • I’ll check and see if Google assistant will answer the calls. Hadn’t thought of that. 
  • Recently his phone updated to Android 9/Pie (did he get Pie in the face?)

Searching Google and Bing I’ve found many folks looking for solutions to this, going back a couple of years. Otherwise, that has been remarkably fruitless. Though I found a forum where the problem was stated to be a broken codec on the motherboard, and you’ll need a new one. Amusing by not helpful.

So, anyone have any ideas? My current best guess is that this some kind of bug or conflict related to the update. Haven’t seen anything formal from the Google, so it makes me wonder if it’s on their radar. 

I’m eager for advice and counsel, oh my techie friends!

And a new printer acquired…

Carl Setzer

As I lamented earlier this afternoon, my Canon Pixma bit the proverbial big one and has now migrated to the decaying pile of electronics in my garage. Soon the man in the cart will come by crying “bring out your dead” and out it will go.

So, after a bit of research, I opted for an Epson XP-640.

With good reviews (4.5ish on both BestBuy & Amazon), decent print times and decent cartridge replacement prices, seemed the best best for our needs. Mostly what we do at home is print out the occasional homework assignment, Amazon return label…stuff like that. Don’t need anything grandiose.

I must say that the installation process was straightforward and remarkably uncomplicated. And connecting it to my wifi was easy as well.

Feeling good about the choice. My old Canon, and considerably more moolah, connected to our wifi network without too much aggravation. But after “a bit” (a couple of months…not too sure), it wouldn’t connect to the network. Sneakerneting it with my PC direct connected to it via USB worked tolerably well. It was something I “was going to get to”…and, well, you know…life.

Anyway, we’ll see how this plays out with the networked printing. I’ll probably explore printing from my phone on this. But now, as I’ve been fighting a cold and am feeling dreadful, I’m going to take a nap. If I don’t lay down, I’ll be napping at my desk.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Please give this post a “like” if you’re so inclined!

Canon Pixma MG6620 Error Code 5011

Carl Setzer1 Comment

A few days ago, my Canon Pixma MG6620 failed. I wasn’t able to get around to fixing this until today.

The ink cartridge carriage was stuck on the far right side. Looking closely, there was a white plastic piece that was pushed out from the back that blocked the feed path.

After looking around the device, stopping and restarting it several times, I finally consulted Google. There I came upon this:

I received Error Code 5011 code on my PIXMA MX922.  This is what worked for me:

  1. Press the ON button once to turn OFF the printer
  2. Press and hold the STOP button for two seconds
  3. While holding the STOP button, press and hold the ON button again.  Release the STOP button.
  4. Press the STOP button four times.  The yellow warning light will flash off and on.
  5. Release the ON button

At first read I thought “this is stupid”. Looking around the web some more, and trying a few other random things, I finally came back to this and figured “whatever, let’s try it. Worst case scenario I just wasted a minute or so”. Anyway, it worked. It looks like it resets the device.

Just to add to the fun, my computer wouldn’t connect to the printer. Uninstalled from my computer, powered the printer off, and now it won’t turn on. I’m about done with this blasted thing.

UPDATE: So, the thing is intermittently failing to power on, the error code comes back, then clears, and is not coming online. I’d say it’s time for a new printer. Not sure I’ll opt for a Canon right now. grump

UPDATE 2: A new printer has been acquired…

 

Fitbit Fun

Carl Setzer

Last night my Fitbit Blaze‘s charge dropped super low. This has rarely been a problem, but sometimes it makes things quirky when I first turn it on after the recharge. So, when I pulled it out of the charger this morning and the time was off by 3 some odd hours I didn’t think about it. Once I got in the car, I opened the app, pulled down to sync, and then proceeded to forget about it. Well, that didn’t work and the thing just didn’t sync.

Later, amongst other things I tried:

  • Restarted the Fitbit
  • Restart Bluetooth on my S7
  • Disconnect and attempt to re-pair the fitbit with the mobile app

Nothing worked. Then I had the idea I should’ve had far, far earlier: reboot the phone. And that’s what solved the problem.

Lesson: sometimes having deep understanding of systems can get in the way. Don’t overlook the easy answers early on. It’s far too easy to get hung up on the complex, deeper down solutions that you forget the simple/basic solves.

Duh!

Have you ever over-complexified a solution? What did you learn?

Visio & Office Versions – Troubleshooting Fun

Carl Setzer

For some time I’ve been using Visio 2007. It’s worked fine, but it won’t let me import .dwg files (CAD files, if you didn’t know) that have been made recently. So, finally, we buckled down the budget and upgraded to Visio 2016. And, well, things got screwy.

I ended up with this error as I tried to install Vision:

I’ve never dealt with Error Code 30029-39 before. Turns out it was something simple, overlooking a basic issue.

Our version of Office was 2013. Now, I’ve been using Visio 2007 with Office 2013 just fine, no problems. But Office 2016 doesn’t play well with other versions of Office. I should’ve checked Office version compatibility.

So, now I was left with a choice:

  1. Upgrade the rest of Office to 2016 – or –
  2. Find some other way

In the spirit of cheapness, I spent time looking at ways to force Windows 10 to let me have 2 versions of Office. And, well, nope. I did find some ways to use a VM client, like Windows built in Hyper-V, but it started to get to a high butt-pain threshold and I went with option 1).

There are times that being able to get back to work is worth quite a bit.

A Random WiFi Issue I Fixed Yesterday

Carl Setzer

A Windows 10 laptop in my office had a fascinating connection issue. It connected to our network just fine,  but showed an error: “WiFi doesn’t have a valid IP configuration”.  Now, the other machines in my office were connecting fine. So, I knew it was this specific PC.

With that, I then noticed it had the same issue with the other local WiFi networks. Forgetting the network and reentering the password didn’t do diddly. Finally,  I looked up this article at Microsoft, and started working through it. About two minutes in,  I noticed a Web page load. Internet connectivity had been restored. Oddly,I can’t tell you what I did that accomplished it. I guess some random background process finished up and released a file. Basic guess, though.

Have you seen anything like this before?

Rebooting a Samsung S7

Carl Setzer

My phone froze earlier today (black screen, no activity), and several of my default fixes didn’t do diddly-squat.

I googled it and found several options. Most of them didn’t do anything. Don’t know if that was due to some model differences (Verizon vs ATT, for instance), or something else.

Anyway, what finally worked was this simple combination:

  • Press and hold the Power button at the same time as the Volume Down button. You’ll hold them for around 10/12 seconds, so don’t give up too early.

That’s all it took. It booted fine and seems to be happy now.