Spent 3 hours trying to fix Wi-Fi in a Barcelona cafe - turns out the router was unplugged

I was working out of this little cafe in Barcelona last week, trying to get on their guest Wi-Fi so I could join a zoom call. Their network wouldn't show up on any of my devices no matter what I did - I reset my phone, tried hotspotting from my laptop, even walked outside to see if it was a range issue. I asked the barista if the internet was down and she just shrugged, so I spent like $12 on espresso thinking maybe I needed to buy something to trigger the password. After an hour of frustration I finally noticed the router behind the counter had its power cord dangling loose - the cleaning crew must have bumped it. Has anyone else wasted a whole morning chasing a problem that turned out to be something stupid simple like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_simon19d ago

Bro, that reminds me of the time I was trying to print boarding passes at a random hostel in Prague. The printer kept saying "offline" and I spent a solid hour reinstalling drivers and rebooting my laptop, getting more and more aggravated. Finally, the guy at the front desk pointed out that the USB cable was literally hanging out of the back of the computer, just barely touching the port. I must have knocked it when I plugged in my phone charger. Felt like the biggest idiot in all of Eastern Europe.

lewis.charlie19d ago

Actually, Eastern Europe technically ends at the Czech Republic's eastern border, so Prague is squarely in Central Europe. That geography mix up happens all the time though, most people lump everything between Germany and Russia together. Still, I feel your pain on that printer - we've all been there with some dumb tech issue that a second pair of eyes fixes in two seconds.