{"id":3016,"date":"2026-04-10T18:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/here-are-some-of-the-most-ridiculous-tech-problems-ive-ever-been-asked-to-fix\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T18:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:46:20","slug":"here-are-some-of-the-most-ridiculous-tech-problems-ive-ever-been-asked-to-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/here-are-some-of-the-most-ridiculous-tech-problems-ive-ever-been-asked-to-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are some of the most ridiculous tech \u2018problems\u2019 I\u2019ve ever been asked to fix"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The topic Here are some of the most ridiculous tech \u2018problems\u2019 I\u2019ve ever been asked to fix<\/strong> is currently the subject of lively discussion \u2014 readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.<\/p>\n

This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies\u2019 decisions and competitors\u2019 reactions can quickly change the picture.<\/p>\n

Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been into tech for as long as I can remember, and have essentially been my family\u2019s tech support go-to since I was about twelve years old. Nearly three decades later, I still find myself occasionally being asked to look at people\u2019s computers, phones, smart TVs, and the list goes on.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, I\u2019ve encountered a wide range of problems in that time. Some of them were real issues, others were a bit stranger. With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at some of the funniest, silliest, or just strangest tech problems I\u2019ve encountered over the years. While most of these so-called problems were user errors, others were just funny glitches or mysteries that I have yet to solve even today.<\/p>\n

The year is 2001, and I\u2019m a teenager. I had rebuilt an older computer for my grandma as a replacement for her aging word processor. If you don\u2019t know what that is, it\u2019s basically like a computer\/typewriter hybrid that is very limited in function.<\/p>\n

She tried hard to learn, but never quite got it. I got all sorts of fun calls back in those days, but my favorite was when she called and said, \u201cAndy, I went away from my computer for just fifteen minutes. When I returned, there were all these lines bouncing around, and all these weird glitches on my screen.\u201d I replied to my grandma, \u201cMove the mouse\u201d. Her screen protector was set to turn on after fifteen minutes. Problem solved!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

My mom told me her Motorola phone was getting too slow. I usually try to do maintenance on it about every six months or so, but it had been a while. I opened up her phone to figure out the problem. As it turns out, she had over 150 apps installed, many of them running at the same time, and was completely out of extra space.<\/p>\n

I was surprised, since she was a pretty light app user, and asked her where all these came from, especially since it was a wide, random range of utility apps, productivity apps, and games. She could only muster, \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know\u201d.<\/p>\n

I was convinced she had malware or other issues that were behind this, but despite hours of searching, no problems were found. I cleaned up the extra apps, removed unnecessary files, and eventually did a factory reset just to be safe. That was a year ago, and she hasn\u2019t had problems since. To this day, I\u2019m still not sure how she ended up with so many random apps.<\/p>\n

Years ago, my friend asked me to stop by his mom\u2019s house to check out her printer problems, as I lived closer to her than he did. I said yes and went on over. Upon arrival, I went through various printer settings within MacOS and did the same with her phone. I couldn\u2019t find the network.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m ashamed to admit it took me roughly 15 minutes to realize the problem. She\u2019d only used the printer once, about a year ago. Her son had set it up with a wired connection, but she\u2019d forgotten and assumed he\u2019d set up Wi-Fi. Even funnier, it turns out that her particular model didn\u2019t even support wireless to begin with.<\/p>\n

She felt embarrassed, but honestly, I felt even worse, since I should have noticed there were no Wi-Fi symbols or obvious signs on the printer.<\/p>\n

Before her school banned phone use, my daughter was at school after hours working on a project. She was trying to log in to her bank app to check to see if she had funds to go out with friends after and get a treat somewhere. She couldn\u2019t get the password to input correctly. It kept cutting out parts of her password in the process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

She couldn\u2019t figure it out, so she asked me to help. I remotely logged into her phone from home and ran into the same issue. It took me a while to realize that somehow the school\u2019s network filters were being overaggressive and were deleting the three letters, the ones in the middle of the word \u201csassy\u201d, which was part of her password at the time. She disconnected from the school network, tried the same thing on Wi-Fi, and logged right in.<\/p>\n

Last summer, I was helping my aunt and uncle move into a retirement community. While there, they asked if I had time to check out my aunt\u2019s computer as well. She said it had been crashing left and right, and she couldn\u2019t figure it out.<\/p>\n

I ran virus checks, malware checks, and tried booting into safe mode. Nothing seemed to work. I did notice that the machine was really low on space, but I figured that couldn\u2019t possibly be the issue. Then I noticed the Recycling Bin was full, so I opened it up. Turns out she had \u2018deleted\u2019 a bunch of old programs and files to make room, yet never actually cleared them completely.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good thing she didn\u2019t either, as I quickly found the problem. Portions of the Windows directory and system files had been thrown away into the bin. The even funnier thing is that my uncle was a programmer and very computer-savvy, so I asked him why he didn\u2019t check and figure it out. His answer? \u201cI\u2019ve fixed her computers dozens of times over the years. She always just finds a way to break something anyhow. I\u2019ve given up trying, and she\u2019s given up asking\u201d. Fair enough, I guess!<\/p>\n

So my wife\u2019s aunt needed help because she had gotten a new phone and couldn\u2019t get the internet to work at all. I came over, pulled up her Chrome browser, and it immediately connected without a problem. She seemed so flabbergasted and insisted that it didn\u2019t work for her. I finally had her sit down and show me exactly what she was doing. It turns out she was adding \u201cwwww.\u201d before every website.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, she\u2019d overpress on the keyboard and end up with four Ws instead of three. I decided the easiest solution was just to tell her that websites typically don\u2019t need the \u201cwww.\u201d part at all anymore. That seemed to solve her issue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just six encounters, though I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve had other problems almost as crazy that I\u2019ve long since forgotten about. Now it\u2019s your turn. For those who often troubleshoot for families and friends, what are your craziest stories? We\u2019d love to hear them down in the comments below.<\/p>\n

Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0Comment Policy before posting.<\/p>\n