Support provider of a very expensive system hasn’t fixed a dodgy update that they released two weeks ago. I finally get them on the phone and 4 hours later, we have the following conversation:

External Company: There’s a socket error when we try to list the named instances on the database server.

Me: There are no named instances on that database server. It’s exclusively used for your database.

External company: But but wait. Microsoft say you need port 1434 open to list the named instances.

Me: Yeah. You’re right. Port 1434 is needed for named instance discovery. Lucky then we’re not using named instances isn’t it? Port 1434 isn’t needed.

External company: But look here. Telnet to 1434 doesn’t work! Look at this other support article from Microsoft that basically says the same thing from a few years earlier.

Me: Yeah. 1434 is UDP. Not TCP so telnet is never going to work for checking. But anyway. 1434 isn’t needed because as I said a moment ago: We! Aren’t! Using! Named! Instances!

Four hours later. We are going over the same song and dance. With every part of this. Yes. It’s a complex system. Yes. I shouldn’t get annoyed with an external company. But when systems cost tens of thousands of Euro and the support provider knows less about their own system than I do, I just get really really annoyed. Especially when it takes them two weeks to get back to me while the system is down and everyone is back to university.

The problem isn’t even with the database! It’s just one part of the entire system he needs to check while finding the actual root of the problem. Which I already know is corruption due to this badly implemented upgrade? Why and how do I know that? Because they have messed up these updates every year now for the past three years.

Unbelieveable.