For an aggravating 36 hours, my phone had no service overseas: It showed no trace of T-Mobile’s free but low-speed international roaming. I
tried switching it in and out of Airplane Mode. I fiddled with its
cellular network settings. I wondered if there was something weird about
T-Mobile’s roaming arrangements in Israel. And then I finally solved
the problem by doing what I should have done when I first saw the “no
signal” message on the screen.
I shut down and restarted the phone.
That
worked for the reason it usually does: Even theoretically simple
digital devices have multiple software processes going on behind the
scenes. Each of those processes can suffer from the same ailments as the
apps you see on the screen: They can get stuck, they can get confused
by errant input, they can crash and fail to resume, and they can run out
of memory. And when one of those things happens, the fastest solution
is often to reboot the whole thing.
That’s
how I’ve fixed issues with: a laptop telling me it couldn’t detect its
own camera; a phone complaining about the same thing; a computer
hopelessly bogged down by its Web browsers (nice memory management,
Apple!); a laptop unable to see its own touchpad; a printer failing to
connect to my home WiFi; and many, many more miscellaneous malfunctions.
I’ve even seen a flight crew go through the reboot routine to clear up a
computer problem on an Embraer 175 regional jet — fortunately, we were still parked at the gate at the time.
I
realize that reboot-first troubleshooting advice has gotten a bad name,
because so many tech-support reps use it as their first line of
defense. (To the point that it long ago became Dilbert material.)
But it’s still a good thing to try before you get on the phone or into
the support chat. Then, when reps advise you to reboot, you can calmly
explain that you already tried that and ask them to move to the next
item on their troubleshooting checklist.
