It’s always irritating when someone asks for help and then acts like they already have all the answers.

So, what would you do if a fellow forum member asked for help with a broken program, but pushed back on every attempt you made to diagnose it?

Would you just stop responding? Or would you keep trying to help?

In the following story, one person is in this exact situation and finds it impossible to help. Here’s what happened.

People who think they know more than you

Not really IT, but the Discord server for a small open-source game’s community has a place where we can help each other to install and run the game, mods, etc.

Most of the people looking for help are really friendly, but there was one instance where the user kept insisting that he knew more about the issue he was having than I did.

Them: “I’m running some spruce mod, and it doesn’t work, but vanilla and X mod work just fine!”

He jumped in and tried to help.

Moderator: “What’s the error message?”

Them: “There’s no error. It just opens a window for a second, then closes.”

Me: “That means it’s crashing.”

Them: “No, it doesn’t. It’s opening a terminal window, not the game. It would open the game if it were crashing.”

Apparently, the guy wasn’t on his computer at the moment.

Me: “Check the log files, not sure where they’d be for ‘spruce mod’ tho.”

Them: “I said source, not spruce, use your eyes.”

Me: “Can you run it in the terminal just in case an error pops up?”

Them: “I’m not on my computer right now, so I can’t.”

Even the moderator had to jump in.

Me: “Then we can’t assist you further until we have an error message.”

Them: “There is no error. Stop implying there is one.”

Moderator: “Please reconsider your approach to this conversation. An error is occurring. Whether you see it or not is irrelevant; the terminal closes before the run script aborts.”

Them: “I’m just not going to do anything. Someone told me I would need to reinstall Python to fix it, and I don’t want to lose data.”

This is not what the guy wanted to hear.

Me: “Reinstalling Python is only the solution to one of the causes of this problem, and it won’t affect your saves.”

Them: “It will affect my ability to run other mods.”

Moderator: “Then why aren’t you running the standalone version?”

Them: “The mod I’m using doesn’t have a standalone.”

Looking back, he should’ve said this.

The conversation ends here. I don’t know if the user eventually resolved his issue.

Honestly, I really should’ve said this to them:

Whether or not you think you’re right, you have to understand I’m trying to help you. If you keep insisting that there’s no error, I can’t help you.

Eek! Dealing with people like this is nearly impossible.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit would’ve told him.

What a silly error message.

Good point.

This person would threaten users.

According to this comment, it’s pretty common in tech support.

The sad part is that people like this never change.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.