Yesterday, Frank J. mentioned that I sometimes help out with behind-the-scenes support of this blog. Some of you may not know what all is involved to, as Frank put it, “keep IMAO up and running.” So, here’s a support event.

19:00 – Email alert sounds.

19:08 – Commercial starts. I pick up the Roku remote and hit pause.

19:12 – Having finished preparing sandwich, I pick up the phone and check email. Read Harvey’s message:

Unable to access IMAO. Anyone else having issues?

19:12:20 – Eat sandwich. Press play.

19:13 – Email alert sounds.

19:19 – Commercial starts. I press pause, put down half-eaten sandwich, pick up phone, and check email. Read Frank J’s response:

I’m having trouble accessing, too.

19:19:30 – Launch browser on phone. Key in http://imao.com/

19:21:45 – Find correct URL, key in http://www.imao.us/

19:21:55 – Receive Error 500 message. Set remote aside.

19:22 – Return to email. Hit “Reply to all”

Yeah, I’m having trouble getting to it, too. My research shows that

Pick up laptop, Google ‘Error 500’

it could be a plugin conflict.

Read search results, discover the first page is no help, so I Google ‘Error 500 WordPress’ but those result summaries are no help either. I’m going to have to click a result to find an answer. Or…

Have we installed any updates recently?

Press “Send”

19:24 – Put down phone, pick up remote, press play, pick up sandwich.

19:27 – Email alert sounds.

19:31 – Commercial starts. I press pause. Pick up phone, read email from Harvey:

I’ve not installed any upgrades.

Email alert sounds. I press “Next” to read new email from Frank.

Let me know if I need to open a support ticket.

19:32 – Put down phone. Pick up remote. Press play.

19:41 – Commercial starts. I press pause. Put down remote. Pick up phone. Hit “Reply to all”

My research shows that

I pause. Pick up remote, flip it in the air, causing it to spin along the long axis. “Heads, database; tails, disk.” The remote lands on the couch buttons down.

disk problems can cause this. Sometimes, if file permissions are incorrect,

Okay, this next bit needs to be really good.

it’s unable to use the server hard drive as a physical backup cache and will throw a generic 500 error.

Hey, that actually sounds pretty good. I can use that one at work.

Let me try one more thing before you open a ticket.

Press “Send”

19:43 – Put down phone. Pick up remote. Press play.

19:46 – Email alert sounds.

19:50 – Show ends, closing credits roll.

19:52 – Return from kitchen with Coke refill. Pick up phone, read email from Frank J:

Thanks.

19:53 – Pick up remote, hit “Back” to return to Hulu queue. It’s empty.

19:54 – Pick up phone, hit “Reply to all”

Ruling out plugins, the only other cause would be

Flip remote. Heads.

database permissions. I’m out of options here. You may want to go ahead and open a ticket. Let them know what we’ve found.

Press “Send.”

19:56 – Pick up remote, scroll to Netflix. Ah, Firefly. Haven’t seen one of those in a while. Press play.

20:01 – Email alert sounds.

20:03 – Press pause. Put down remote. Pick up phone. Read Frank J’s email:

I’ve opened a ticket and gave them the information you provided. Thanks again.

20:04 – Press play.

20:38 – Email sounds.

20:40 – Email sounds.

20:41 – Firefly episode ends. Pick up phone, read email from Frank J:

Support says it’s back up. Thanks for your help.

Go to next email, from Harvey:

Thanks again, Basil. You’re a lifesaver!

20:42 – Hit “Reply to all”

Glad it’s back up and running. Let me know if I can help any further.

20:43 – Press send. Pick up remote. Press play.