When wireless becomes powerless

Anyone who supports a FileMaker solution has received one of those calls. The type that has the ability to turn your day on its head. The feature that has worked reliably for years suddenly stops functioning as intended for no obvious reason.

Me: "Has there been any change in hardware?"
Client: "No."
Me: "Any change in software?"
Client: "No."
Me: "Any other problems started occurring?"
Client: "No."

Taking a deep breath you know that you just might be about to go on a four hour wild goose chase.

In this instance the client reported that the database was behaving erratically when performing data entry. It was working ok earlier in the day but now it was missing some of the text being typed or there was a delay and letters were repeated intermittently. Initially I thought it may have been a performance issue, perhaps the processor was so busy that there was a lag in input being displayed in FileMaker.

Me: "Do you have many applications open at the moment?"
Client: "Oh, about seven things open."
Me: "Try quit a few of the applications you're not using and see if things improve."
Client: "That looks better now. I'll give it a go and let you know if the problem returns."

Fifteen minutes later and I received another call. The problem had returned.

Me: "What happens when you try entering text into another application, say a Word document?"
Client: "Same thing! Sometimes it's ok, then other times it doesn't display the text being typed. This has never happened before."
Me: "Do you have a wireless keyboard?"
Client: "Yeah..."
Me: "I think I might know what's going on here. Try replacing the batteries and call me back if the problem persists."

I never did get the call back.