PC suddenly or inexplicably won't recognize UEFI boot device(s)

Problem:  As title.  May show up on a machine that has been booting from USB for years.  USB media is working; no settings in BIOS help; moving the USB boot device to other USB ports doesn't help; rebuilding USB media doesn't help. 

A:  You might have plugged in a new USB hub, or other device, that is stopping your mainboard from finding the USB boot device.

I had this happen when I upgraded a little D-Link hub on my desk to a larger model with more ports.  Everything was fine in Windows, but on boot, this hub prevented my mainboard from detecting my USB boot drive.

It is indeed the hub, and not anything plugged into the hub.  I tried.

As a BIOS is relatively simple, I'm guessing the new hub (which is USB 3.0) is somehow incompatible with the BIOS detection protocol used to find UEFI boot devices.

As my mainboard is hardly current, this could be limited to just this hub, or maybe to all USB 3.0 hubs connected to older mainboards that don't support newer protocols.

I only use the USB drive to boot into a backup/recovery environment, so it wasn't a major thing.  But as a back up weekly, it is annoying, as I have to disconnect the new 3.0 hub in order to boot to backup mode.  I'll be trying another model.

Firefox not showing images or maps on certain websites only

Problem:  Firefox consistently refuses to load images on certain specific websites, which may or may not be image-heavy.  Examples may include Aliexpress or Google image search.

Firefox may also refuse to show map images on sites with map functionality, such as Kijiji / Craigslist and Samsung SmartThings Find, and news stories from the BBC, Propublica and others may be missing their images.  Images will just not show, or show placeholders; maps will show as "Sorry, we have no imagery here", or similar.

Other websites are consistently fine, and Chrome does not have any problems with the "bad" sites.  The usual fixes, such as clearing cache / cookies, don't work, limiting the problem to specific sites only.

Fix:  Firefox may be set to not load "webp" images, which are getting more and more popular.  The solution is here.

 I lived with this for almost 2 years and was beginning to think I'd have to switch to Chrome to get around it.  (I'm not a Firefox devotee, but I also don't like changing things around.)  I can't figure out why the webp loading setting was not enabled by default, or if it was, how it got switched off.

Google Calendar "Settings and sharing" says only "Settings" and not "Sharing"

 That is, the "sharing" options are completely missing.

I had 1 calendar of several like this.  I never could figure out how to fix it; I had to create a new one, move events from the broken one to the new one, and delete the broken one.

Yes, it's a pain, but there wasn't anything else for it.

Note that - depending on your calendar app - you may have to go into your phone Calendar app settings to make the new calendar actually visible!

Prospective buyer of your vehicle asks for "Autoviny" report.

 Per this post and this score, I believe Autoviny is a scam.

I personally got multiple offers of interest from separate phone numbers that all followed an identical script.  This pretty much gave it away.

 Similar  tactics involve "hybridvin.com", and basically all kinds of other sites that aren't Carfax.

What I usually do is tell people to get their own report(s), and if they buy the car, I will reimburse them for the cost.  That weeds out the liars and scammers.

 

Update:  I'd not seen this in the news - and I read a lot of news - but I did run across this BBB report afterwards.  Also this, this, this and this.

The various scammers have been kind enough to provide a list of scam sites, current as of November 2023:

• Autoviny.com
• Canadavin.ca
• Hybridvin.com
• Canadavinreport.ca 
• Canadavinpro.ca

 Of course, as new domains only cost a few bucks a year, these sites will be endless. 

To pay them back, I've taken to sending them random science facts from this website.(which is actually legitimate, and fun too!). 

How to put new lines / line breaks / carriage returns in LinkedIn chat

Change your chat settings to "Click Send":

 

[God, why is everything a @#%$!@ video these days.  Just #%%$& tell me without 2 minutes of narrative.]

Specific emails are never received at a Shaw email address

I recently saw a case where two Shaw email addresses in the same household behaved differently.

One of them would simply not receive any email from a specific sender.  The other one had no issues receiving emails from the same sender.

There were no error messages on either side, the email account was not full, and the lost messages were not in Trash or Spam.  There were no settings on the problem account that would explain this behavior.

Even stranger, the emails in question never showed up on the problem account even after forwarding the same email from the successful account.  

So, the problem account wasn't just rejecting the original sender - there was something in the message itself that caused it to get lost in transit.

Testing showed that the problem Shaw email account was rejecting a specific domain name in the text (i.e. "abcdefg.com").  

 That is, if the email - ANY email,  from anyone - contained the phrase "abcdefg.com", it would be lost; otherwise, it was fine.

The successful account did not show this behavior.

From this, it IS possible for two different Shaw Webmail accounts to behave differently, and it IS possible for Shaw email accounts to silently reject and/or lose emails under certain specific circumstances.

I did not ask Shaw about this because (a) I don't care and (b) I doubt their tech support is equipped to understand / correct this issue.  But it's definitely on the Shaw side.

It's not likely that anyone will actually run into this behavior.  The domain in question (not actually abcdefg.com) is associated with a Chinese electrical equipment supplier.  I read an unconfirmed report that they had a habit of spamming people, so perhaps they're on some kind of blacklist. 

(And no, I have no idea why any such blacklist would be used on one Shaw account and not all the others.  If you've got a better theory, I'd love to hear it.)

Regardless, I've been on Shaw for decades, and this is the first time I've personally encountered this behavior.  So, not impossible, but (hopefully) extremely rare.

It is just barely possible that this has something to do with the Rogers transition.  No way to know.

Google Chrome suddenly not working in Windows 10/11

Problem:  Chrome starts, then immediately closes.  You can see the window momentarily.  Usually and suddenly manifests on a kids laptop that had no prior issues whatsoever.

No error messages.  Can still see some Chrome-related process running in Task Manager, but nothing useful.  Reinstall doesn't help.  Chrome works fine on other devices.  No known issues with connectivity, cache / hard drive space, etc.  Edge works.  Firefox will not work.

Solution:  Your child(ren) probably got involuntarily signed up for Microsoft Family Safety, which can block all browsers other than Edge.

•  Go to the Family Safety parental / Family Organizer account.  If you don't know what that is, try here.

•  Click your kids account.

•  Go to "Content Filters".

•  Be sure you're on "Web and search".

•  Turn OFF the "Filter settings / Filter inappropriate websites and searches" feature.

 

Several things baffle me about this, including:

•  Why or how this feature suddenly starts working without any changes to the Family Safety account settings; and

•  Why Microsoft does not provide any kind of error or troubleshooting message when blocking Chrome.  People are just supposed to know this... HOW??? Via divine intervention?

Thank God I ran into this post almost immediately in my searching, or else it would have been another hours-long saga to figure out just what the hell was going on. So maybe that part was divine intervention.  I'll take it regardless.

Honestly, Family Safety should be my go-to for all things going wrong at this point - it's a ******* disaster.  The Synology router I've been using for years has been flawless, Family Safety is just a dumpster fire.  I'm taking my kid off of MFS at the earliest possible opportunity.

And once again, a big you-know-what to Microsoft for shoving this shit down people's throats with zero notice or support.  I've seen 13-year-olds that can code better than you.  Put up a goddamn error message like it's this millennium, you infuriating wankers.