Diagnostics

Work out what is actually wrong before you change anything.

7 articles

A first hour triage checklist when a site goes down

Spend the first hour deciding what is broken, not why. Scope is cheap to establish and it eliminates most causes for...

Telling a host problem from a site problem

One question separates the two faster than any other: how wide is the blast radius? A fault in the hosting environment...

Reading what a browser error is actually telling you

A browser tells you more than "the site is down". The exact way it fails records how far your request travelled before...

Checking whether a change you made took effect

Before you decide an edit failed, prove you are actually looking at the new version. Two mistakes eat most of the time...

When slow is the server and when slow is the site

Slowness has an address, and four observations find it before you spend anything. Time to the first byte separates the...

Collecting the right evidence before opening a ticket

A ticket gets solved on the first reply when it carries your observations, and drags on when it carries your theory...

Confirming your DNS is doing what you think it is

Verify a DNS change from somewhere that has never met the domain: the authoritative servers first, a spread of...
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