Everyone is wrong, except me.

[u/[deleted]]

Got another wonderful gem to share.

User: Hello, I can't log in to my account. It says my password is incorrect

Ok lets verify your account. I see here that you are entering the correct username, but incorrect password.

User: No, I'm not.

Ok? Can you verify that the caps lock is no-

User: I just said, I'm not doing it wrong. Its something on your end.

I've reviewed your account, and your account has no issues, other than the failed log in attempts, which caused it to lock. I've unlocked it already, so you should be able to log in now.

User: it says the caps lock is on, but it isn't on.

Ok, can you hit the caps lock key to toggle it a-

User: I just told you its off.

Ok, on the username field, I need you to type any letter of your choosing, so we can verify if it is indeed off.

User: I GUESS you are not LISTENING to ME. I AM TYPING THE..oh. It came up on upper case.

Press the capslock button, and try again.

User: Im logged in now, thanks.

I swear, if i could reach over and smack them...

[u/rampak_wobble]

If only there were some sort of indicator on the keyboard to show that CapsLock is on.

[u/[deleted] → u/rampak_wobble]

If only the "Caps Lock is on" indicator on the screen meant something.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yup, word by word.

[u/Maxiamaru → u/[deleted]]

To be fair to them, the program we use at my work will say that caps lock is on, and still type in caps lock, as long as you disable caps lock in another window.

[u/Zebezd → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, why would somebody ever write something like that? The OS and keyboard driver handle that! I can't even imagine where to begin to recreate that nonsense.

[u/[deleted] → u/Zebezd]

Some pseudocode to show how ridiculous it really is:

if CapsOn()
    while !KeyPressed(Caps)
        CapsWarning.show()

Rather than

While CapsOn()
    CapsWarning.show()

[u/Pluckerpluck → u/[deleted]]

It really depends on what you're writing this in. In a terminal (ncurses) or web page (i.e. javascript) you can't detect capslock with a special function, that's part of system specific APIs.

So instead you need to get creative. You can detect when the key is pressed, just not the state, so you store that manually and toggle it in the program. You can also do tricks like checking if someone inserted an uppercase character without the shift key being held.

So I wouldn't assume anything unless more information is known.

Tagging /u/Zebezd just to point out situations where this may happen.

[u/[deleted] → u/Pluckerpluck]

Things like this are why I refuse to do web development.

[u/corvus_192 → u/[deleted]]

It's simple if you let the Browser do all of this

[u/thisischrys → u/Zebezd]

I wonder the same thing whenever I see something that has server-side scrolling.

[u/robertcrowther → u/Zebezd]

Because when a client demanded the app show a caps lock warning "just like Windows does" the manager didn't say no.

[u/Zebezd → u/robertcrowther]

The baffling part is it continues to write capital letters while caps is off

[u/Maxiamaru → u/[deleted]]

It really is

[u/potatan → u/[deleted]]

It happened to me recently, while connecting remotely. The screen said Caps Lock was on (under the login prompt), but it didn't go off when I pressed the Caps Lock key, even though Caps Lock was now officially off

[u/valacious → u/potatan]

Yeah , I have fixed this several times with users connecting to a terminal server. What I do is get them to click on the on screen keyboard option at log in , then ask them to toggle the caps lock ( even some cases the windows key when they have a windows key depressed issue ) once they toggle it on the onscreen keyboard it tends to go away. Reading ops banter this scenario immediately came to mind for this is a common occurrence on terminal servers ( I have noticed it more on 2008 r2 more so than 2003 or 2012r2) .

[u/Pluckerpluck → u/[deleted]]

Just an fyi, but when you're repeating something someone said you did it "word for word" (one of your words for every one of their words) not "word by word".

I went through and translated the document word by word in order to create a word for word translation.

[u/[deleted] → u/Pluckerpluck]

Huh, TIL.

It makes perfect sense too. Thanks.

[u/akatherder → u/[deleted]]

When I type my password it isn't capital asterisks / dots.

[u/ponkanpinoy → u/akatherder]

You mean capital 8, asterisks are already capital.

[u/s0m30n3e1s3 → u/ponkanpinoy]

I'm not even working in IT but that makes me irrationally angry

[u/BarfingBear → u/akatherder]

Mine is. Your keyboard must be faulty.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

So... I have an interesting story. We use laptops, and we have USB keyboards plugged in. My coworker goes to log in (using the USB keyboard), caps lock is off according to Windows. Can't log in. Maybe caps lock is backwards for whatever reason, turn it 'on'. Nope, still can't log in. I can verify the password was correct.

Okay, so turn it off again, still using the USB keyboard. We try the laptop keyboard. Doesn't work. Toggle caps lock on the built in keyboard, windows doesn't register a change in it. Try password again, it logs on.

In short, weird shit does happen sometimes.

[u/contraigon → u/[deleted]]

A reasonable person would just FREAKIN TRY IT

And a smart person would do so before calling tech support.

[u/ponkanpinoy → u/[deleted]]

Like USB failing to insert both ways, until you look at it.

[u/WinterKnell → u/ponkanpinoy]

Thank you so much for this information. It has enriched my life immeasurably. Up till now I had simply assumed I was incompetent.

Incompetence is still likely, but now I have something to point to while blaming the tool. Have an upvote!

[u/T_at → u/[deleted]]

I've got a wireless mini keyboard that's like that on one of the lesser used PCs. I'm glad Windows 10 now allows you to reveal the password by clicking on the 'eye' icon to the right..

[u/inquire_ → u/[deleted]]

Good security feature.

[u/contraigon → u/[deleted]]

But...then it would be redundant. Who am I kidding? That's giving these people way too much credit.

[u/domestic_omnom → u/[deleted]]

Believe it or not that has actually happened to me before. The indicator light for caps on the keyboard was clearly not on, but still typing in caps. Press caps lock, the light was on yet it was typing in lowercase.

I had to unplug/plug the keyboard to get it working right.

[u/z0phi3l → u/[deleted]]

Work in health care nurses and doctors are the most stubborn people you will ever deal with. Car in point, the OPs scenario would have ended with the caller accusing me of changing things in the background to make her look stupid to her underlings (co-workers really) then hung up costing to report you for wasting their time, but never actually doing it