https://errorzap.com/Recent content on Error ZapHugoen-usThu, 11 Jun 2026 01:00:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/phantom-bad-blocks/Thu, 11 Jun 2026 01:00:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/phantom-bad-blocks/A field report on diagnosing and repairing a RAID failure that wasn&rsquo;t a hardware failure at all — and why &lsquo;replace the disk&rsquo; would have made it far worse.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-alert-that-went-to-nobody/Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-alert-that-went-to-nobody/A critical event fired a perfectly good alert into a receiver wired to absolutely no one — and everybody slept fine because of it.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-cert-only-an-api-could-renew/Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-cert-only-an-api-could-renew/A FreePBX user panel served an expired TLS cert, every reload swore it was fixed, and the only thing that actually moved the needle was calling the cert module&rsquo;s own regeneration API.https://errorzap.com/posts/when-postgres-wont-start/Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/when-postgres-wont-start/A database stuck forever on &lsquo;starting up&rsquo; wasn&rsquo;t broken — it was clawing its way through WAL replay on a dying disk.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-sensor-that-cried-wolf/Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-sensor-that-cried-wolf/A loud-sound detector paged us all night for slamming doors — because it measured volume, not meaning.https://errorzap.com/posts/why-your-fitness-trackers-correlations-are-lying/Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/why-your-fitness-trackers-correlations-are-lying/I built a dashboard that confidently told me walking ruins my sleep — then I learned what a confounder is.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-app-that-wouldnt-open-after-an-update/Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-app-that-wouldnt-open-after-an-update/A desktop app auto-updated, swallowed its own window, and hung forever — and the fix had nothing to do with the install.https://errorzap.com/posts/teaching-a-computer-to-mute-the-sounds-i-hate/Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/teaching-a-computer-to-mute-the-sounds-i-hate/I tried to delete a sound from my life with a volume threshold. The sound was never loud — it was a fingerprint, and I had to teach a machine to read it.https://errorzap.com/posts/i-found-my-own-server-on-shodan/Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/i-found-my-own-server-on-shodan/I scanned my own infrastructure like an attacker would — and found an admin panel wide open that my firewall swore was closed.https://errorzap.com/posts/seven-network-gotchas-that-look-like-ghosts/Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/seven-network-gotchas-that-look-like-ghosts/The network isn&rsquo;t haunted — it&rsquo;s orphaned ports, stale DNS, and a firewall eating your return path. Run the checklist before you light the candles.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-99-access-points-that-didnt-exist/Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-99-access-points-that-didnt-exist/An inventory report swore a site had 99 access points; the ceiling said twelve, and the database had been lying the whole time.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-smart-blind-that-took-down-the-network/Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-smart-blind-that-took-down-the-network/A $30 Wi-Fi window blind decided it was the default gateway, and the whole site went dark whenever it felt like it.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-deploy-script-that-ate-the-production-database/Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-deploy-script-that-ate-the-production-database/A homegrown deploy script copied the whole app folder to prod — database file and all — and quietly overwrote live data with an empty local copy.https://errorzap.com/posts/i-found-a-secret-in-a-git-repo/Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/i-found-a-secret-in-a-git-repo/I went looking for a leaked credential in a client&rsquo;s stack and found one staring back at me — committed by my own hand, baked into history forever.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-56k-upgrade/Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-56k-upgrade/The afternoon the modem screamed a little faster and the whole house held its breath.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-pwa-that-froze-when-offline/Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-pwa-that-froze-when-offline/A field tech opened an &lsquo;offline-capable&rsquo; app in a dead zone and got a blank screen that hung forever — because the service worker was politely waiting for a network that was never coming.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-api-loop-that-ran-up-the-bill-overnight/Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-api-loop-that-ran-up-the-bill-overnight/An unattended automation found a paid LLM endpoint, lost its mind, and hammered it thousands of times while everyone slept.https://errorzap.com/posts/one-caddyfile-infinite-subdomains/Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/one-caddyfile-infinite-subdomains/A dozen self-hosted apps, a dozen ugly ports, zero valid certs — until one wildcard cert turned &rsquo;expose another app&rsquo; into a three-line chore.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-dot-matrix-printer/Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-dot-matrix-printer/The screaming beige monster that printed your book report one agonizing dot at a time, and the perforated paper-strips you weren&rsquo;t allowed to tear off too early.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-subdomain-that-pointed-at-nothing/Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-subdomain-that-pointed-at-nothing/A routine DNS audit turned up subdomains aimed at servers that died months ago — quiet little doors anyone could walk through.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-universal-remote/Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-universal-remote/You remember the fat black remote with too many buttons that somehow ran the whole living room.https://errorzap.com/posts/getting-cameras-out-of-the-walled-garden/Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/getting-cameras-out-of-the-walled-garden/A camera platform that only spoke encrypted RTSPS quietly refused to talk to the NVR — until I found the plain-RTSP back door it was hiding.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-lan-party/Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-lan-party/You remember hauling your whole computer across town just to sit in a room and frag your friends.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-crt-and-the-zap/Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-crt-and-the-zap/You remember the fat glass monitor that hummed, glowed, and bit your knuckle with a tiny lightning bolt.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-boot-disk/Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-boot-disk/It was a chunky little square of plastic that decided whether the computer would even wake up that day.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-backup-that-hung-forever-on-onedrive/Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-backup-that-hung-forever-on-onedrive/A Kopia job sat at 0% all night because it tried to read files that didn&rsquo;t actually exist on disk yet.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-flying-toasters/Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-flying-toasters/You walked away from the computer for ten minutes and came back to find it had grown wings.https://errorzap.com/posts/two-apps-one-port/Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/two-apps-one-port/Edits vanished, reads lied, and nothing in the logs was wrong — because two copies of the same app were quietly knife-fighting over the same TCP port.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-surge-protector/Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-surge-protector/You remember the long beige bar on the floor with the little glowing button, the one that ran the entire family universe.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-bot-that-hung-because-of-ipv6/Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-bot-that-hung-because-of-ipv6/A Telegram bot kept freezing on outbound calls with no error — turns out a NIC with IPv6 addresses but no working IPv6 routing was quietly killing every request.https://errorzap.com/posts/how-a-mesh-vpn-killed-my-ssh-jump-host/Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/how-a-mesh-vpn-killed-my-ssh-jump-host/The bastion broke every time an IP changed, so I deleted the bastion.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-pager/Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-pager/You remember the little black box on your dad&rsquo;s belt that buzzed once and changed his whole face.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-speaker-that-caused-a-network-storm/Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-speaker-that-caused-a-network-storm/A wired network melting down at a customer site, traced to a pair of consumer speakers quietly braiding a layer-2 loop out of copper and mesh.https://errorzap.com/posts/making-a-python-script-a-real-service/Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/making-a-python-script-a-real-service/The script worked perfectly — right up until I closed the terminal and watched it die.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-encarta/Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-encarta/You remember when all the knowledge in the world fit on one shiny disc, and the loading screen had its own theme music.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-be-kind-rewind/Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-be-kind-rewind/You remember the little sticker that begged you to spin the tape backward before you brought it home.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-walkman/Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-walkman/You remember the sacred panic of a tape unspooling, and the pencil that always knew what to do.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-blinking-vcr/Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-blinking-vcr/You remember the glowing green 12:00 that nobody in the house ever fixed.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-answering-machine/Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-answering-machine/You remember the little blinking box that held strangers&rsquo; voices hostage on a cassette the size of a postage stamp.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-firewall-api-call-that-wipes-your-router/Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-firewall-api-call-that-wipes-your-router/I ran a &lsquo;harmless&rsquo; config script against a pfSense box and watched the entire firewall configuration evaporate in a single function call.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-floppy-disk/Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-floppy-disk/A square of beige plastic that held your whole world in 1.44 megabytes and felt like it could hold the universe.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-payment-that-showed-zero-but-wasnt/Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-payment-that-showed-zero-but-wasnt/A recorded payment rendered as &lsquo;$0.00 applied&rsquo; and everyone assumed the money vanished — but the ledger had been right the whole time.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-cable-box/Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-cable-box/You remember the heavy little box on top of the TV, and the remote that was leashed to it like a dog that wasn&rsquo;t allowed off the porch.https://errorzap.com/posts/how-my-own-backup-deleted-my-files/Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/how-my-own-backup-deleted-my-files/I deleted nine files on purpose — and my backup node helpfully deleted them everywhere else too.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-phone-cord/Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-phone-cord/The coiled cord was a leash, a lifeline, and the closest thing your house had to a portal — and you stretched it to its absolute limit.https://errorzap.com/posts/when-your-backup-client-lies-about-its-name/Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/when-your-backup-client-lies-about-its-name/A green-lit backup agent that hadn&rsquo;t saved a single byte in weeks, because the machine and the server disagreed about what it was called.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-git-rm-that-deleted-30000-files/Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-git-rm-that-deleted-30000-files/One innocent <code>git rm -r</code> to untrack a folder, and 30,209 notes vanished off the disk in a single keystroke.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-antenna-on-the-roof/Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-antenna-on-the-roof/You remember the metal skeleton on the roof that ruled the channels and feared the wind.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-family-computer/Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-family-computer/There was exactly one computer, it lived in the living room, and the whole family had to take turns being kings of it.https://errorzap.com/posts/the-settings-api-that-corrupted-every-setting/Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/the-settings-api-that-corrupted-every-setting/I changed one backup-retention field, ran it twice, and every client&rsquo;s settings ate themselves like a snake swallowing its own tail.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-sound-of-dial-up/Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-the-sound-of-dial-up/You remember the song the internet sang before it would let you in.https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-box-on-side-of-house/Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:57:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/90s-kid-box-on-side-of-house/Every 90s house had a boring gray box bolted to the siding marked DO NOT OPEN. Turns out it still runs your whole digital life.https://errorzap.com/posts/watching-birth-of-internet-before-we/Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:05:07 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/watching-birth-of-internet-before-we/A 90s-kid origin story: backhoes, giant coax, and the future services that turned into broadband.https://errorzap.com/posts/openclaw-smart-ai-model-routing-to/Wed, 04 Feb 2026 21:29:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/openclaw-smart-ai-model-routing-to/Stop Wasting API Calls:A Practical Guide to Multi-Tier AI Model Systems How to run 24/7 AI automation without burning through your quota or your budget ⚡ Whttps://errorzap.com/posts/google-drive-and-onedrive-are-not/Wed, 22 Oct 2025 21:48:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/google-drive-and-onedrive-are-not/Google Drive and OneDrive are sync tools, not backups.If ransomware hits or files get deleted, they sync that too—straight into the void.☁️ Backup Rule 101https://errorzap.com/posts/my-digital-brain-developed-with-ai/Mon, 15 Sep 2025 01:16:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/my-digital-brain-developed-with-ai/Trying to improve my awful systems and memory with automation and Ai developed solutions.Brainscan eats data from multiple apps and sources and then displahttps://errorzap.com/posts/online-security-gut-check-secure/Tue, 08 Jul 2025 02:50:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/online-security-gut-check-secure/🔐 Have You Enabled 2FA Everywhere? Changed Your Password This Decade?Let’s start with a gut check.Do you reuse the same password across multiple sites?Is yhttps://errorzap.com/posts/ransomware-its-like-escape-room-but/Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:02:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/ransomware-its-like-escape-room-but/There&rsquo;s been a massive spike in real-world malware attacks lately on average businesses—not just attempts, but full-blown breaches where threat actors gainhttps://errorzap.com/posts/explosive-home-remedies/Wed, 18 Jun 2025 04:28:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/explosive-home-remedies/When nasal spray just won’t cut it, light the fuse of freedom.https://errorzap.com/posts/eyebong/Wed, 18 Jun 2025 03:22:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/eyebong/Eyebong™: The first ophthalmic cannabinoid serum with mind-expanding vision technology. See the truth. Or go blind trying.https://errorzap.com/posts/no-fires-today-because-i-put-them-out/Mon, 19 May 2025 13:15:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/no-fires-today-because-i-put-them-out/Today’s biggest crisis? Logging into Google.(Yep. That was it. The login screen. The pinnacle of chaos.)So I’m officially calling it a success.Never mind thttps://errorzap.com/posts/click-this-click-that-install-this-run/Sun, 18 May 2025 02:21:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/click-this-click-that-install-this-run/Ah yes, the sacred ritual of modern IT.Every day I wake up, stretch, and immediately begin my daily chant:“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”My hhttps://errorzap.com/posts/prednisolone/Thu, 24 Apr 2025 00:33:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/prednisolone/Oompa Loompa, doopatty Zone,Let me explain what Prednisolone&rsquo;s known:It fights inflammation, that’s its big skill—But oh, the side effects? They&rsquo;re kind ofhttps://errorzap.com/posts/ways-to-spot-scam-without-even-updating/Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:25:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/ways-to-spot-scam-without-even-updating/<ol> <li>It’s on Social MediaIf it’s on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram—it’s a scam.Doesn’t matter if it’s a giveaway, a job offer, or your grandma tagging you in</li> </ol>https://errorzap.com/posts/my-life/Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:40:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/my-life/So all of my life, I knew something was perhaps different about me. I would see others socializing, having fun, playing. However, I could not do those samehttps://errorzap.com/posts/men-in-suits-worlds-most-successful/Sun, 02 Mar 2025 07:09:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/men-in-suits-worlds-most-successful/They smile, shake hands, and rob you blind—all while calling it “business.” From banks to boardrooms, politicians to hedge funds, the biggest lies come wrahttps://errorzap.com/posts/breaking-news-colorado-takeover-starts/Tue, 18 Feb 2025 21:37:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/breaking-news-colorado-takeover-starts/Breaking News: The Musk Era BeginsIt&rsquo;s time for me and my elite, highly-qualified executive oversight team (comprised mostly of AI, flamethrowers, and onehttps://errorzap.com/posts/chronic-illness-do-you-get-it/Mon, 10 Feb 2014 08:35:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/chronic-illness-do-you-get-it/Chronic illness. Two words. Yet so much confusion lies within them. Yes I (and others, look fine) but inside we hurt, and are a mess. We take massive amounhttps://errorzap.com/posts/pueblo-police-you-can-not-take-photos/Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:11:00 -0700https://errorzap.com/posts/pueblo-police-you-can-not-take-photos/So here I am, driving home and I see cops, and a car partly in a building. These are the things I like to photograph. So I proceeded to take photos (All thhttps://errorzap.com/posts/night-aliens-abducted-me/Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:16:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/night-aliens-abducted-me/&ndash;Originally Posted January 25th 2006 on Myspace &ndash;This is a re-cap of my night last night. Hope it makes some sense!Ok so I went outside to light a smallhttps://errorzap.com/posts/pueblo-county-sheriff/Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:15:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/pueblo-county-sheriff/&ndash;originally posted January 30, 2006 on MySpace &ndash;Allrighty,So earlier this morning I was at work with a friend I met on MySpace, this was our first time mhttps://errorzap.com/posts/i-miss/Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:11:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/i-miss/&ndash;Originally Posted April 10, 2006 on Myspace &ndash;I miss the days when going online required a trip to grandmas houseThe days when going online was a rare, ahttps://errorzap.com/posts/ubuntu/Tue, 01 May 2007 09:25:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/ubuntu/Recently I got fed up with windows constant problems and crashes. I have (had) an XP install on this machine and after only a few months I had more problemhttps://errorzap.com/posts/pandora/Wed, 04 Oct 2006 07:40:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/pandora/Pandora is an amazing product offering to show you new music that you will like. And it does in fact do what it claims.I have for a long time wanted to finhttps://errorzap.com/posts/logitech-cordless-desktop-mx-5000/Wed, 04 Oct 2006 07:27:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/logitech-cordless-desktop-mx-5000/So recently I purchased the Logitech® Cordless Desktop® MX™ 5000 Laser . I was excited, a new toy! That excitement quickly vanished and turned to frustratihttps://errorzap.com/posts/firefox-download-action-blank-fix/Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:55:00 -0600https://errorzap.com/posts/firefox-download-action-blank-fix/So I came across this wonderful problem earlier, and it took more searching than I like to find a fix. So here it is for anyone else who has the problem.Pr