To think I might actually die trying to sort out DM's iPhone?

[TreacherousPissFlap]

DM has a new phone, she's very pleased with it.
The very nice man in the shop told her all her settings would "follow her over" to her new phone. Her settings have not followed her over
It now appears that DM has no less than three different FB accounts. I assumed she was changing profile pictures, turns out she was just logged into different accounts of the same name. This also explains her indignation that people have not replied to her messages.
She does not know her AppleID and appears to have locked it to DSDads fingerprint- sadly he died two years ago so is not really being much help.
Any requests for passwords are met with blank looks, as if it's an utterly outlandish thing to request.

Mom got a tablet for her birthday sis set it up for her, no problems. Until the day sis got an email from my mum with one word, help as the subject. Panicking, sis called my mum, only to be told that she had sent that message the week before but as the browser was being fixed, hadn't gone through. Sis mentioned a few choice words she wanted to say but didn't - am staying out of it as then they'd call me instead.

I bought my mum that Doro phone for oldies. ‘It’s not like everyone else’s... I want the internet’

My mil once rang up the microsoft helpline to complain that her pirated copy of Word wasnt working. She knew it was a pirate copy but in her mind that didnt absolve Microsoft of responsibility for making sure it worked

Does anyone else's mum or grandparent take the "broken" phone into a random shop and ask them to fix it? My nans took hers to bingo and asked " the young girls" to fix it, she's taken it to Tesco and had some one turn the data back on at customer services. She's then also took it into the hairdressers and asked them to have a look whilst her bleach is sitting on dying her hair

My grandmothers Amazon tablet spent a week at our house recently in the hope my OH could 'sort' it. She'd forgotten her password which meant she couldn't get in to it after it 'reset itself'. She also didn't know her email password so attempts to reset the tablet password were useless. We figured it in the end.

She was so cross with it that she was ready to get rid of it- we advised she get an iPad instead because we and other family members know more about them and could be of more use when she needs help. But apparently Mavis from her WI said she shouldn't get an iPad because it's not compatible with anything else. What on earth does she need it to be compatible with?! She uses her email account and Google, that's it!

Ahh my dear old mum has been a nightmare since my lovely dad died. I'm now her go-to tech support. At least once a week she'll call with these exact words 'oh love, I don't know what's wrong with my phone but...' This week she wasn't getting any WhatsApps (because she'd managed to turn her mobile data off). Last week she'd turned on the torch and couldn't turn it off again. She constantly insists her phone isn't very good (it's a P20 so not exactly a crap one) and feels like the man in the shop ripped her right off (I was with her, he really didn't).

She was quite happy with her last phone, an ancient HTC my dad had given her, until the day she was googling mass times at a local church and a pop up appeared saying 'YOUR PHONE HAS BEEN INFECTED, CLICK HERE TO ACTIVITE ANTI VIRUS PROTECTION'.

She clicked.

Obviously, chaos ensued. She kept getting notifications for 'UKs BEST VIAGRA' and 'HOTTEST GIRLS IN YOUR LOCAL AREA' and other really rude things and she can't have that, what if they pop up while she's at church? Somebody might see them and think she's trying to buy viagra and hot girls (I dunno mum, maybe don't have your phone on at church, or don't show it to people).

It's not limited to her phone of course, it took me over an hour to talk her through tuning in her brand new 43 inch smart TV, but that isn't really very good either and it looks like it might fall over, what was wrong with the big sturdy looking tellys? She can't find anything good to watch on Now TV, and how does she find out what time XYZ programme starts on Netflix?

See also DAB radio, her Huawei Mediapad (the big phone thing) and the WiFi printer (oh god, the fucking WiFi printer. That one pushed me to the point of saying 'Mum I really want to help you but I'm actually feeling a bit spiky today and not sure I have the patience for this, can we talk through it tomorrow?')

It's a good job I have the patience of a Saint, a trait I thankfully inherited from her.

I’ve found my people.

Bought my mother an iPhone. Recently bought her a Tile so she wouldn’t lose her keys. Went round to set it up after seeing through her ‘it works great’ lies.
Can’t download the app. Can’t remember Apple password. No problem, we’ll reset that. Nope. Two step authentification is on (what are the hackers going to steal, her rants on Daily Mail articles and her knitting patterns?) but she doesn’t know which phone number it is, and she can’t remember her own number. No worries, the Apple thingy can send an email to her gmail.

Nope. She can’t remember her Gmail password either. Managed to reset that but it takes three days in case I’m a hacker.

‘Don’t worry love, we’ll sort it when you’re next round. Or I’ll get your brother to do it’.
Of course the password reset email is only valid for 24h and I live halfway across the continent from you so no difficulty there mother
🤷‍♀️

If when I go round this week that fecking Tile isn’t working on her keyring and phone, I’m reclaiming it.

And buying her 1password instead.

Oh and while trying to find the password she pulled out a FULL NOTEBOOK full of old passwords, none of which are valid now, but she’s keeping the notebook just in case.

Infuriating.

Gosh, and the switching off of the internet before bed. WHY?!?? When I used to stay with my parents when I went to visit I knew to download anything I wanted to watch in bed before their bedtime.

:o I feel like all those 80s/90s programmes where they imagined the future and had people talking to each other on video phones were optimistic. Getting a facetime from your mum's nostrils is much more like it :o

I once wrote out for my mum a step-by-step set of instructions for how to turn on her tv and her Freeview box, how to find and record programmes, and how to play them back.

The list ran to two sides of note paper, and she still hasn’t managed to record anything, never mind watch anything recorded on her set top box.

Luckily I don’t live near my mum - my poor sister does, so she ends up being Tech support for mum.

Just to make things harder, Mum has eczema and her finger tips split, so they are usually taped up with paper surgical,tape, and she wears cotton gloves and lots of moisturiser to try to keep her hands from drying out. This means she has all the manual dexterity of a fully gloved-up boxer.

Dfil has a brick mobile phone. He is also deaf as a post. Dh and I sat, almost puce with the effort of not laughing, while ds2 tried to talk his grandfather through learning to text. He has since managed to send the sum total of one text - and he only managed that by handing his phone over to a younger person who did the texting for him!

I've got eczema.

I've tried setting up fingerprint recognition, but regardless of which finger or thumb I use, I can't get the fucker (Samsung S7) to recognise me.

Just as well I have an 8 digit passcode I haven't written down anywhere.....😉

I love this thread.

DM isn't too bad but for reasons I cannot fathom she treats WhatsApp with utter suspicion and has to be guilted into using it.

We are still fighting with the local nimbys to get a phone mast put up near our village, so I'm lost without WhatsApp, but she still insists on texting me and then complains that I don't reply to them until I get to work the next day. She is kept up to date with Mastgate. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have NO CLUE what the problem is with WhatsApp. But I'm off to China with work soon so I'd like her to start using WeChat. Not a chance.

@TreacherousPissFlaped

setting up fingerprint recognition, but regardless of which finger or thumb I use, I can't get the fucker (Samsung S7) to recognise me.

Have you tried your toes?

Sorry that last message was for @Gingernaut

Don't they all switch off the broadband at ten? Both DM and DFIL are big fans of that.

Much fun trying to switch it back on quietly at six thirty when DS wants to watch cartoons and you just want to sleep off last nights sherry.

Where have you all been hiding? I’ve been needing this support for years now!
A lot of my tech support for my parents experiences have been similar to yours but my latest peeve is my parents sat nav. They recently bought a new car with sat nav, which they’ve never had before. Despite trying to walk them through it several times, there have now been several occasions where they’ve phoned me in a complete panic needing me to walk them through how to use it - normally as they are speeding down the m25 somewhere having no clue where they’re going. Argh!!!!

I had similar with my mum. She got logged out of Facebook so naturally made a new account rather than trying to log in to her old one ... she spammed everyone in her contacts with a fat burning video.
I tried to reset her password but her email address was no longer in use as she’d retired. (Yes she’d used a work email).
I had to in the end take a photo of her driving licence to validate her original account and then got her to text me her password etc. On the website rather than the app.

MIL has done the same thing, I’ve had countless friend requests from her because she constantly starts a new account. I thought she’d unfriended me because she hadn’t updated recently but turns out she can’t get back into it at all now. Funnily enough none of her own 3 children are jumping to held her with it...

My mum used to call me when her 'little pictures' vanished on her PC - dad was working abroad and had set her Windows up so all icons were visible, and she kept minimising or hiding them. I realised DP was a keeper as within 3 months of us meeting, he was putting up with her calling him instead. His only expertise above mine in IT is owning a penis.

Thankfully she worked for the CAB, they sent her on a course, and she actually came out fairly competent with IT, if slightly prone to phoning sleeping Californians to check they'd really sent an email attachment.

So apart from the time I spent an hour hearing about her mobile that no longer worked - turned out in 18 months she'd never had to charge it - things have gone pretty well. She even mastered the ipad once I supplied a 3yo to help!

And then I found the stash of old laptops. About fifteen of them. My dad explained that when anything goes wrong, they go to the local computer shop who are very helpful. And every six months or so sell them a new computer. Which, to be fair, does fix their problems...

I don't think I'm going to get an inheritance at this rate, but actually, I can live with that...

@longtimelurkerhelen, not only does my eczema affect all my digits, I'm not taking my shoes and socks off in public to open my phone! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

DDad turns off the internet at night too. This is to save electricity, or something. Grr. Although the lifelong running joke that he can’t spell reaches new heights when combined with predictive text. He is proud of outwitting the predictive text function. He also runs a business with no website, never mind social media presence.

DGD managed to reset the language of his iPod so it was in Greek. This sparked off a lot of “it’s all Greek to me!” jokes.

DGM gets the girls down the gym to sort her phone out for her. Those girls must have the patience of multiple saints.

My DM is fairly okay but the speed she can type at is painful. I’ll send a her a WhatsApp saying I’ll pick her up at (say) midday. I can see the message is read, she’s ‘online’ and then she’s ‘typing’......
.....typing......
.....typing......
(5 minutes later)
......typing......
......typing......
(I’m now expecting war and peace to arrive)
......typing......
.......typing.....

‘OK’

DSis and I have long since given up. We just say no, DF, you do not need this obscure but high tech operating system, what do you THINK “log in with your email address” means, and why is your profile picture a dog?

DH and DSis’s BF are too kind new to the family to say no to all the ridiculous requests, and don’t understand the decades we’ve had of this. they are the new favourites.

@Gingernaut

Well you could try your nipple , yes really apparently it works.

soranews24.com/2013/09/21/the-iphones-fingerprint-lock-also-works-with-toes-and-nipples/

Oh, forgot about DF’s other old chestnut

Me: I sent them my cv/copy of passport/bank statement/uni essay
DF: Why did you do that? You should keep a photocopy for yourself. Do you know what was in that? How can you be sure

Cue me explaining, every time, that I’ve not posted the only copy of something.