Find out where the problem lives, before touching anything
Work out, in under two minutes and without changing a single setting, whether a problem is in the app, the device, the Wi-Fi, the line into the house, or the website itself.
Between you and a website there are five links in a chain, and a problem lives in exactly one of them. Almost all wasted time comes from changing things in the wrong link — restarting a router because a website is down, or resetting a password because the Wi-Fi has dropped.
The method is not to guess. It is to find one test that splits the chain in half, then another that splits what is left. Two or three tests and there is only one link standing.
Key points
- There are five links: the app, the device, the Wi-Fi, the line, and the website
- Do not fix anything until one link is the only one left standing
- A second app on the same device separates the app from everything else
- A second device on the same Wi-Fi separates the device from the network
- Cellular data with Wi-Fi off steps around your whole house in one move
- All five ruled out means it is their turn, and waiting is genuinely the work
What to remember
- A good test is one whose two possible answers send you to different places. If both answers would leave you doing the same thing next, it was not a test.
- Two devices failing the same way, and one succeeding by a different road, puts the fault on the road they shared.
- When you have ruled out all five of your own links, the answer is that it is their turn — and there is real relief in knowing that for certain.
- Think of the last time something would not work. Which of these did you do first?
Try this
You do not need a fault to practice on. Pick any site, turn Wi-Fi off on your phone, and watch it load over cellular data instead — that is the test that steps around your house, and doing it once while nothing is wrong means you will remember it on the morning something is.
Practice: Find out where the problem lives, before touching anything. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.