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July 30

Where to Report Two Incidents

I would like advice on where to report two (unrelated) software incidents (so probably two different places).

About two weeks ago, I was trying to make an archival copy of my C: drive to a large external HDD, using ROBOCOPY. I forgot to specify the /XJ switch on the ROBOCOPY, which resulted in about 1 TB of data being copied (from a C: drive that had about 230 GB of data) to the archival drive before I killed the copy. I know what that problem was, which was a ROBOCOPY runaway in following symbolic links. Then I tried to delete the recursive archival data from the archival drive. After some effort, I tried one last effort, and can look up exactly what I did, but am not looking it up yet. My last attempt to delete the recursive data resulted in no response after an extended period of time, after which I made various attempts to interact with my computer, and I eventually had to unplug the computer from the UPS and restart it. Analysis of the Event Viewer log showed that memory had been exhausted. I also lost one of the directories on my C: drive. The attempt to delete recursive data had caused a loss of real data. My conclusion is that I shouldn't have tried to delete the recursive directory that had been created by an out-of-control process, and that formatting the external disk was the way to minimize the damage. So my question is what is a good forum in which to describe this incident and the lesson learned.

The second incident was that I was trying to use Microsoft Copilot to help me walk through the process of replacing the cartridge for an HP 139W laser printer. It told me to open the front door of the printer. I said that I had opened the top cover of the printer and could access the cartridge, and it told me not to do that, but that I should open the front door instead, and that changing the cartridge through the top could result in damage to the cartridge. There isn't a front door, only a top cover. Other printers presumably have a front door. How can I report to Microsoft that Copilot was hallucinating about the HP 139W? What is a good forum to advise users of Microsoft Copilot that it may hallucinate about the design of a printer?

These are two matters that are unrelated except that I would like to know a good forum to describe each incident for the benefit of other users. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Based on your description, ROBOCOPY behaved as it should. You didn't include /XJ to tell it to skip symlinks. What would you report to ROBOCOPY? You made a mistake and you deleted files you shouldn't have deleted after that?

As for Copilot, it is an LLM chatbot. They are not intelligent. They only put sentences together that appear to make sense. They all come with legal disclaimers that you need to verify the correctness of the LLM's output. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

A video shows opening the top cover of the laser printer that the OP may recognise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WrUspm9tqg . When I ask CoPilot for instruction it replies "here are the exact, official steps for replacing the toner cartridge in the HP LaserJet M139w/M139we series, based directly on HP's support documentation and videos." and it provides links to HP Support instructions and a replacement video overview. CoPilot arguably covers the OP's issue about whether one opens the top or opens the front by quoting "01 Open the toner access door....Lift or open the front toner access door fully." I understand CoPilot has no image interpretation ability to distinguish between a door and a cover. CoPilot comprehends them both as "access door" which is perhaps forgiveable. However to warn that changing the cartridge through the top is forbidden and damaging is bad advice. My experience of correcting CoPilot's mistakes is that when confronted it readily "apologises for the confusion" but neither Microsoft nor CoPilot will pretend never to make a similar mistake again. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

August 3

Unblock my simcard puk code

Give me the puk code simcard +966545876963 ~2026-43097-65 (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-43097-65 Nobody knows your PUK code except your mobile service provider. It may be available on the SIM card's packaging, the contract, or provided by their customer service after identity verification. You will need to call them. Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:11, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 4

Chromium renders visual editor using 2GB RAM (on large pages)

I presume this was not part of the design... and for that I have some serious debugging work to do.

debug_info:
MacBook Air | M1 - 8GB - macOS 26.5.2
ungoogled-chromium | arm64 - 144.0.7559.96
Display enlargement 200%
User-defined font: IBM Plex Sans (variable, 16 pt)

海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 09:13, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Is THAT why it was bogging down so badly the other day?? I had to help someone on Teahouse with a workaround to disable it because it was locking up the entire page - couldn't even load in to swap over to source mode. Phones are not made for that ish! (Me and Chromium's insatiable appetite for memory have had issues for a hot minute.) ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 11:03, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

August 8

I can't install the Widgets extension on my wiki

I tried to install the Widgets extension on a wiki, but after installing it, pages that use this extension throw an error. The error content is at here. Could anyone who can understand this code analyze what the problem is? ChatGPT says it's a Smarty version issue, but I reinstalled Smarty and it didn't help. Also, the MediaWiki used by this wiki was recently upgraded, and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. Ataled (talk) 00:39, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

This is more a question for Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).→  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:35, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Now I have fixed the bug. Thanks for ChatGPT. Ataled (talk) 13:11, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

August 10

Google not indexing Wikipedia article

In April this year I wrote the Wikipedia article Pyrox Wire Recorder. Just now I searched google for pyrox wire recorder but the Wikipedia article did not show up. Even pyrox wire recorder wikipedia did not yield the article. I got the same result in incognito mode. The lack of inclusion in the search results is interesting.

P.S. The search the archives at the top of this page only searches Wikipedia. I am on a mobile device. Commander Keane (talk) 10:54, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Could be because the article is an orphan? Morwen (talk) 10:57, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if that plays a part or not, but it's only an orphan from other articles; it has links from categories, image pages, and the like. Matt Deres (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, I would suggest that's the essential definition of an orphan article. I made some WLs in 'See also' sections in various other articles, let's see what happens. MinorProphet (talk) 01:51, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I just googled pyrox wire recorder, without quotes, having never visited the article or googled it before, and the Wikipedia article was the top result. DuncanHill (talk) 01:54, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Bing, on the other hand, didn't find the article in the first three pages, but it did find the article talk page. DuncanHill (talk) 02:00, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

DuckDuckGo's results page first features a box contaning the start of the Wikipedia article ("The Pyrox Wire Recorder is an Australian wire recorder [...] dubbed on to an acetate disc..."), followed by "Continued in Wikipedia".  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:21, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

It is now the top result on Google.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:30, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

DuckDuck and G**gle results replicated. I cannot bring myself to use Bing, that way insanity lies. Removed orphan tag. Apparently, hurrah: WP Ref Desks 1, ROW 0

Resolved

MinorProphet (talk) 15:15, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

August 11

Update to 'Problem with Firefox browser' 23 July query

 Courtesy link: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2026 July 23 § Problem with Firefox browser 23 July 2026

As promised, I'm reporting back on the above. Thanks to all who offered advice. The first thing I did was follow MinorProphet's directions for saving my Firefox bookmarks, which worked perfectly.

I continued periodically opening Firefox, which continued to freeze after a few minutes. A day or so later, Firefox offered an update, which I implemented – this just seemed to make Firefox freeze more quickly! However, a few days later it offered another update, and this seemed to get it working again, though with an impression of 'frailty', if I can put it like that; there has been another update since which seems to have 'strengthened' it. So there does seem to have been a problem at Firefox's end.

That left the problem with accessing Gmail, which would no longer open my account with only my password. I went out to a network shop (EE) and purchased a new SIM card for my (non-smart) mobile phone (whose SIM had expired from non-use), but it turned out the phone (bought 2016) was locked to only two (other) networks (O2 and Vodaphone). EE sent me round the corner to a mobile phone shop, which sold me the current 'any network' version of the same model phone, and I had the EE shop insert their SIM into this (which I could have done, but I wanted an expert to ensure everything was working properly).

Today I opened Firefox, opened Gmail again (which seems to have undergone a radical upgrade), and with a now-working mobile I was able to give its number and receive a text message with a verification code, and am now into my email account.

Phew!

Thanks again to Gadfium, Antonissimo, PiusImpavidus and MinorProphet for your help and advice.

In the next few months I am planning to buy an entire new (Windows 11-capable) IT setup, probably change ISP, and buy a smartphone, but I want to research all the best options first. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 11:29, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Hurrah for you from us all. Whatever, do not delay, the price of DRAM has shot through the roof with the mainstream deployment of LLM agents ('AI' although it's not), and the price of yer average desktop PC/Laptop/Apple has followed suit. MinorProphet (talk) 15:30, 11 August 2026 (UTC)