That was the question a friend of mine in 6th grade asked. As a result I developed what I call the Charlie M. rule after my friend. It was sort of Show and Tell day in 6th grade and we were supposed to talk about our hobbies. I brought in a circle of HO scale track (18″ radius for those interested) and my locomotive (a model GP-38) and some cars and of course the transformer to power it all.

I set it all up in front of the class and dutifully tried to demonstrate it. Nothing moved. I checked to make sure the engine was properly on the tracks: check. I made sure the wires were connected to the transformer: check. I made sure the wires were connected to the track: check.  I was stumped: check. Finally Charlie raised his hand and asked, “Shouldn’t that be plugged in?”  Ayup, in all my nervousness and being hurried, I had forgot the most basic step, of plugging in the transformer.

I try to keep this in mind when troubleshooting: check the obvious. I ran into this again over the weekend when trying to get my BMW Z3 running again. (Side note: no, consulting does not pay that well. This is one of the few tangible items I have left from my dad’s estate). It had stopped running late last fall and at the time I spent a little time trying to make it run, without much success. Finally, with the family’s help I pushed and pulled it into a shelter for the winter and then left it for the winter.

I wasn’t planning on worrying about it until later this month, but then… well let’s just say when I put the large box with metal corners into the rear of the Subaru, I forgot to check the obvious and slammed the rear hatch down on the box. Well, the box, realizing it didn’t have enough room, decided to take advantage of the metal corner and proceeded to make more room by punching out the rear window of the Subaru. Oops.  Such a simple mistake, but a large one.

So, while waiting for the Subaru to get fixed, I decided it was time to get the BMW on the road.

Now due to the symptoms, I knew it wasn’t a dead battery or bad gas. So taking advantage of what I call my extended brain, I asked others for help.  We had narrowed the problem down to either the clutch interlock switch or the starter. Neither looked like it would be an easy self-service and I was getting frustrated. I finally decided that perhaps checking the ODB-II codes might yield more information. Strangely though, the reader didn’t power up; there were no codes to read. That struck me as a strange. So here I did check the obvious: I took the reader to the Subaru and made sure the reader worked. And it worked fine on the Subaru. I went back to my extended brain and mentioned that.

“Oh, have you checked the fuses?”

“Nah I thought about it, but everything seems to have power.”

“You sure, sounds like the onboard computer fuse might be blown.”

So, I trudged out and took off the fuse cover.  Now, I don’t really believe in fate or signs from God, but it was weird, in the list of about 40 fuses, the first one my eyes fell on was Computer. “Nah, can’t be.”

I pulled it, and sure enough, it was burned out. I pulled it and replaced it. Got in the car and thought, “it can’t be that easy, can it?” A turn of the key and the next thing I knew, the 6 cylinders were purring.

All that work and frustration because I had overlooked the basics.

This is far from the first time I’ve overlooked the basics. And I bet you’ve done the same thing. I have a theory about why we do this, and it is in part because the basics ARE so fundamental that we assume it has to be something else. In my model train example, dirty track and loose wires, especially in an ad-hoc setup are arguably a more common issue than forgetting to plug in the transformer. In my BMW case, because literally everything else worked, I assumed the power was getting to the computer. And honestly, even now, thinking about it, I’m surprised the dash light startup didn’t change at all because of a lack of computer.

I’ve seen this in databases and elsewhere. I was recently trying to do a quick restore of a database from one machine to another and the obvious wasn’t working. It took me a bit to remember the client’s new security setup prevented this specific case for these two machines. Once I remembered that, the problem and subsequent solution were obvious.

This in part goes back to why I like using a rubber-duck at times. It can force you to review your assumptions and check the basics.

Having a problem? Employ the Charlie M. rule and check the basics.