Showerthought: An old instructor told me to always check the cannon plug first, and he was right
Spent 3 hours chasing a phantom fault on a G1000 display, and it was just a pin backed out in the connector at the tray. How many hours have you guys wasted ignoring the simple stuff?
That "check the cannon plug first" advice used to sound like lazy troubleshooting to me. I thought real techs dug into schematics, not just wiggled wires. Then I lost a full day on a nav radio that wouldn't power up, replaced the whole unit, and it was just a dirty pin in the back. Now my multimeter leads go on the connector before anything else. What was your most annoying simple fix?
My uncle's a mechanic and he calls it "chasing the ghost". That zip tie story from elliot_barnes is a perfect example. I see it everywhere now, from a blinking router light being a loose cable to a car check engine light from a gas cap. We jump to the complex fix because the simple one feels too easy.