A guy called me and claimed he “couldn’t get anything on his computer”. That can be translated in so many ways. Usually, it means, “I can’t get on Facebook”.
I went to his home, and his problem was that he had lost his internet. He has DSL through his phone service. That morning, he lost his phone service along with his internet. His phone service came back, but his internet did not.
Sometimes, after a disruption like this, all you have to do is reconnect. But when I looked at his computer, I immediately knew the problem.
On my Windows 10 computer (desktop with Ethernet), my connection icon (down by the clock) looks like a static monitor. If you are connected with wireless, it has the wireless logo. If you are not connected at all, it looks like a globe. These symbols may vary depending on your Operating System.
His looked like an “Airplane”. He had “Airplane Mode” enabled.
Airplane Mode, according to Wikipedia.
Airplane Mode disables the internet. I clicked on the icon, and in the menu that popped up, I clicked on the “Airplane Mode” icon to disable it. I don’t know how it got enabled, but I showed him what to do if this happens again.
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I had a similar situation with a customer stating his Windows 8 computer didn’t look right when he booted up that day when he called me asking for help. I went over and soon discovered he had tablet mode on. Of course if I was real smart I should have figured that out over the phone.