I applied all the latest Windows XP "critical" security patches to my machine. Rebooted. And I couldn't sync with my cel phone any more. Grumble.

If you Google around for things like "Nokia DKU-5 problems", you'll find lots of ways that these things can be misinstalled and the hell you need to go through to get everything just right. I blew two hours yesterday on that and eventually got stuck with "Driver cannot start (Error Code 10)". Helpful, no?

Today, I called in one our sysadms to see if he could make sense out of it. We disabled and reinstalled all kinds of drivers. No good. Our big "ah-hah" moment came when we plugged my cel phone directly into the computer's USB port rather than the hub in the back of my monitor. Suddenly it all worked. Plugging and unplugging the USB cable for the monitor (Apple 23" Cinema HD with DrBott adapter), we found that the monitor was showing up as an "Unrecognized USB Device" rather than a USB hub. We power-cycled the monitor by pulling the plug on the DrBott adapter and now everything works properly again. The monitor's USB hub showed up as it was supposed to and everything plugged into there also showed up properly.

*sigh*

*sigh*

Phew. I've got one of those cables, and I couldn't live without it. I've not installed this month's patch yet, but you nearly scared me there.

We power-cycled the monitor by pulling the plug on the DrBott adapter and now everything works properly again.

Yup. FM. I hate that.

So, just to get this straight, you solved a software problem by power-cycling your monitor? Nice.

As far as I can tell, either something about the WinXP update, or maybe just a coincidental cosmic ray, screwed up the USB hub in my monitor. Power cycling that fixed the problem. The "error code 10" and other associated problems appear to be standard-issue bogosity with Nokia's drivers, which weren't helped by the fubar USB hub and whatever else I messed up in the process of removing and reinstalling things.

Although, come to think of it, it sounds much cooler the way you describe it. So, yes, I solved a software problem by power-cycling my monitor.

You guys should know the first rule of electronics by now

If it don't work switch it off count to ten and then switch back on if it still don't work then it has a problem

Bizarely this also works when the caterham 7 doesn't start flick the master switch and then turn it back on and it normally starts