Thanks for tangling me up in this...

[Dreamstalker]

P called me on my day off Tuesday asking for the online-pickup user login; our computers had updated on Monday night and logged everyone off. Thinking that this will be a quick userID question, I give him the login (which he damn well should know). Then I get hit with "the software's glitching; it keep refreshing."
Me: "If there's nothing sitting on the keyboard or mouse call the helpdesk."
P has me on speaker, and I hear him say to someone else "Well, I guess I have to have someone call the helpdesk then."
Me: "Yeah, you do. It's my day off. If it doesn't get fixed just leave a note."
Him: "OK, bye."

So I come in yesterday. No note. I text P from a burner GVoice number to just ask if he has a ticket number for this, get a reply "no they said it's a global issue and didn't give me a ticket number". I call the helpdesk anyway; any global issues will be mentioned on the automated greeting. Nothing about any wide-ranging problems.

I go to log in. Hmmm, Chrome is trying to contact a validation server that I don't recognize...ok, close down. Look at the shortcut....WTAF. Something went flooey during the system update and rolled our pickup software back to a previous version; the specific server configurations for that previous version don't exist anymore and haven't for at least three months.

I reopen the software, clear all data. OK, I can log in; now things are working the way they should (barring the occasional glitch that is tied to the software initially looking for something that's not there). I kick this issue up to one of the managers as it's less an actual real-time emergency and more "hey this happened and it wasn't supposed to, we can work around it now but can you guys fix it when we're not using the system". I'm now wondering if the helpdesk even knows the software got rolled back. Our DM--who I emailed after having to reactivate the customer-location app twice, I think it's related to this--has been silent on the issue.

[Arcus]

I'm thinking the help desk team are wishing they could take you out for a beer as thanks

[Dreamstalker]

The issue still exists, although most of us have figured out the workaround (all browsing data must be cleared, not just since the last login). P is still flailing around but seems incapable of doing any real damage that the rest of us can't fix...no we haven't told him the fix.

For a week before this, a registry policy update was trying/failing endlessly; I suspect that whatever that was is related. I truly wish that I could see exactly what happened with the system that night...obviously a Windows update hosed something, but what? (I don't have access to view completed/failed updates at the granular level so I can't research anything) I've been fighting for at least a year for one of us in the store to receive some company tech training to take some pressure off the helpdesk when things go wrong.