How do I determine the nature of the issue?

Before calling for assistance, try to determine the cause of the problem by answering the following questions:

• What behavior are you experiencing? What behavior do you expect?
• When was the last time the software worked properly? When was the problem first observed?
• What was changed in your environment in the interim? (installing software, changing configuration, etc.)
• When did the problem occur? When does the problem not occur? What is different between those situations?
• How extensive or localized is the problem? What is the difference between the elements that exhibit theproblem and those that don't?
• How critical is this problem to your development or deployment? Can you work around it until a fix is found?
• Is there a better way to implement the software that would make the problem disappear?