HDMI the biggest PIA ever invented.


I wonder, can you put a dab of adhesive silicone on the connector to help keep it in place, like you might with an IR bug, AND possibly convey the point that it shouldn't be removed?



Just thinking...

That's like telling fire to stop burning- it won't help.

The problem is that either it wasn't conveyed or the guy forgot that anything done to this system that causes improper operation by anyone other than someone with, or sent by the company, will result in a bill for the service call. Rolling over the cable with a chair and not thinking that it had something to do with the problem is like breaking a windshield and going to the dealer for warrant repair, saying "I can't see when I drive".

I was labeling all the circuits for the C4 panelized lighting that was just installed. I would go to the touchscreen near the pool table, turn on a light, then verify which one on the dimmer pack was turning on (which was about 15 feet away from the C4 dimmer panels). I did this for every load, then left. Two days later, the homeowner calls, complaining that the touchscreen by the pool table doesn't work. I drove up to take a look. Yep... it was dead. I went back to the patch panel and didn't see it being fed into the POE switch, but the other switch. They claim no one ever went behind the rack and moved the cat6. I told them I had JUST used that touchscreen the other day, and it would not have worked had it been plugged into the wrong switch. But... I kinda believe them since the husband is SO tech inept; he has a printed list on "How to Forward and Email" next to his desk.

Gotta be Fins ghost!! ;)

Well, maybe. It's possible for the client to do something stupid every time they turn the system on that you won't do when you turn it on. It might just work for you! Then everyone is puzzled because nothing seems to be wrong.

I always have the client turn on the system, doing one step at a time. I've seen some amazing things.

(Once I programmed a Marantz RC5200 to work a guy's over-bed projector OR his slide-out platform 35" TV. I showed him that he could do one thing or the other. I dropped by one day and he had both working, which I DID NOT program it to do. But it did it anyway!)

Client altered a system that had been stable for years, because client figured this stuff was easy I guess, or cheap, as I believe.


Client removed old RPTV, used a tilt wall mount purchased somewhere, dropped a HDMI cable down through the old power pass, and connected everything up.

Of course clients remote no longer worked, so the client "had" to call me.

Said client mentioned, that he had tried manually getting the system to work without success, since he could get sound but no picture.

I go, program the remote, fire the system up, and get no picture.


Client had mangled the end of the HDMI cable when client put the mount in full tilt.



Client not only paid for the programming and a service call, but a nice new cantilever mount that allowed for the needed tilt.

DIY client can be great...LOL

Had a customer call up and say he had two TVs he wanted to connect to his WiFi to see Netflix. We say that should only be an hour or two.

We go there and find that both neither TV has built in Wifi and start looking how to run CAT5 to the TV sets. After about an hour looking everywhere and figuring how to run wire we tell him the price. He says why can't you use the WiFi adapters that he has? We say what WiFi adapters? He says the ones that came with the set. He goies and finds them and says "will this help you. I didn't know what they were and I forgot to give these to you.

We then install the USB wifi adapters and try to connect to the Apps and Netflix. It won't open and we google the problem and find that you must do a firmware update but it can't be done through the wifi. You need to go to the Sony website and download the update and transfer it to a USB thumbdrive and load it through the USB port. The download and upgrade takes at least 30 minutes. But it works.

The second TV we find has no Apps and can not play Netflix. We tell him that he needs to buy an Apple TV and we say we can pick one up for him and come back in two days.

We come back there and install the Apple TV and he says that "you all did a lot of work for only two hours", We say that was an estimate and since the problems were with your TVs we spent a lot of extra time. He says that we said it would be two hours and that is all he would pay.

Two days later he calls up saying he has forgotten how to use the Apple TV and wants to ask a question. I tell him to call Apple TV.

You are talking about training a client. I am talking about troubleshooting. Once I go through the system and ensure everything works properly, I can then retrain the client. Upon arrival, I always ask what is the system doing, and when. I then start by focusing on that aspect of the system. Basic troubleshooting. Imagine someone bringing their car to the mechanic and says "Whenever I drive, I cannot see out of the windshield" and leaves it at that. The mechanic would be dumbfounded and drive the car, no issues. Take the customer for a drive, and no issue. Clients gets in car to leave and never takes the car out of reverse and drives backwards. Use the system properly (as trained to use it), and it will work, barring defective equipment.

I am absolutely talking about troubleshooting. If the client needs training, you need to troubleshoot the way he operates the system to learn that. Why touch anything at all before seeing what he does?

The client is witnessing an operational problem with the system. (Let's say for some dumb reason he picks up the TV remote and hits channel up after turning on the system.) So he calls you to get it fixed.

The first thing you need to do is to see the problem. If you turn on the system and, reasonable person that you are, you don't hit channel up on the TV remote, the system will come on and work perfectly. This leaves him wondering how you did that and leaves you thinking he doesn't know what he's doing.

Sure, this has to do with training the client, but you won't know that until you let him turn the system on... so why not start by having him turn the system on? That way his thought that there's a problem (though he won't see yet that the problem is his idiocy) will be confirmed; you will see the thing he's complaining about; and you will know at that point whether it is truly a troubleshooting or a training issue.

If the system has a problem, it's a problem when HE operates it. YOU operating it without seeing what he does only delays things.

And God help you if you think you know what the problem is before the system is even turned on, and you reach behind things and mess with the wires. You might "fix" the problem by wiggling a wire you did not intend to even touch, meaning you won't know what you have done to "fix" it. You'll think it's fixed, only to go away and have the problem recur.

So, you continue to operate the system properly, and eventually discover there's no problem with the system; I'll continue to have him turn it on and have the occasional "ah, I see that you're doing something that creates this problem."

A lady in Beverly Hills gladly paid us for a service call, during which we showed her that she was putting the CDs into her Pioneer 100 disc player with the label on the wrong side. The crazy thing is that the orientation of CDs on this player was the reverse of the orientation of the CDs on her Pioneer multidisc player in the other room.

We had her show us what she did to play a CD, then what she did to play a new CD. That was about a minute's time. We did not have to check audio performance, or speaker connections, or anything at all beyond what she was doing.

Please provide cliff notes on your post and I will read and reply. Thanks.

Ok. Client experiences a problem when they operate the system. Have client operate the system. Otherwise you may not see their issue.

The issue they're dealing with doesn't include you. Don't just jump in.

You missed when I said this:

"Upon arrival, I always ask what is the system doing, and when"

I am talking about troubleshooting. You are still talking about training. You are talking about the client using the system improperly. Training fixes that. When client shows me what is going on upon arrival, it's either user error (training as next step), or system malfunction (troubleshooting as next step)

What is training? We just go with an intuitive GUI so that we don't have to waste time.

After dealing with stuff like this for years in the early 2000's...the way i would have handled this from the moment i started is "you will need an appletv at each location and we will need to run Cat5 to each of them".

If people want to play science project with their gear they can do it on their own time or sign a blank check.

Thanks for insinuating we do not go with an intuitive layout.

I am not talking about simply turning stuff on and off. But features. I had a client call me once because he said that his cable was not working. All he would say is that he keeps trying to watch TV and cannot get it to work. He was not able to elaborate, so I scheduled to go out there and meet with him. This was actually the first time I met him, only ever dealt with his wife. Anyway, his issue? He did not know how to use the DVR functions and had set some things to record by pressing record on the remote, but didn't know how to get to the recording shows. I match the DVR button labeling to whatever the OEM remotes say typically, which in his case said DVR. He knew how to do this on the OEM remote because it is green, but never paid attention to the labeling.

I was going after Ernie's troubleshooting training comment lol