Mini Mac failed after three months, Apple not helping

BrianTH wrote:

Although it's under warranty, Apple refuse to provide me with mail in repair

FYI, Apple does not provide mail-in repairs for desktop based systems. Apple only provides mail-in repair for laptops and perhaps only in certain regions.

and say I must take it to my Apple Norwich, over an hours drive away. I'm medically housebound at present and can't do this. How can I get Apple to provide me with the mail in repair under warranty?

Are there any Apple Authorized Service Providers in your region? If so, perhaps you can make arrangements with them to make a house call to assist you. The AASP may charge for the home visit as it does cost them money for gas & wear on the car. If the Mac Mini does need a hardware repair, then the repair itself will be covered for free by the warranty, but not the home visit.

https://getsupport.apple.com/repair-locations

From what you are describing with the network issues, I doubt your Mini has a hardware issue. Either macOS has a configuration issue, or you don't have the proper printer driver installed, or you have an issue with your home network. Troubleshooting network issues remotely can be difficult, but many times it is possible for the forum contributors to assist you in resolving some network related issues. You will need to answer the contributors questions so we can get more details to help narrow down the issue. If you are patient with us, then maybe we can get it figured out. Sometimes though it may require someone to see everything first hand which would require a local expert.

BrianTH wrote:

... How can I get Apple to provide me with the mail in repair under warranty?

These are some Apple contact options:

Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753) or on line Support.Apple.com 

or call AppleCare Support at 1-800-APLCARE (800-275-2273) 

Outside the US: Apple’s global phone numbers: Contact Apple Support 

Also this:

Apple Corporate Contact: How to Contact Us - Apple

This suggestion might be controversial but it has worked for me with computer and numerous other types of problems over the past year or so.

Use AI.

If you aren't using the dedicated Gemini app, simply type your problem including as much information as possible about your Mac, OS etc. into the search field of Safari (or any other browser) and hit the return key.

In seconds you will receive a detailed answer.

If AI's suggestions don't work, tell it. Explain what has just occurred and AI will come up with revised suggestions as there may be unique items connected with your computer setup.

Sometimes I have had to interrogate the AI answers several times to narrow down the solution/culprit but I have always arrived at a solution.

It's exactly like asking questions and receiving replies on these forums except the replies are instantaneous rather than taking minutes or hours to reach you and the AI databases contain more knowledge than everyone on these forums combined . . . even more than mine. 🥱

You may find it slightly awkward typing a long and detailed question into the Safari search box so write your question in Notes or TextEdit and copy and paste it into the search box.

If you have downloaded the dedicated Gemini app (FREE) you can simply speak your question with your microphone which should be even quicker.

Just make sure you give as much info as possible.

One final word . . . you do not need any technical skill to use Gemini . . . simply open it, click on the microphone icon at the bottom right and speak!

One point of clarity, on a WiFi network (or any network for that matter), the router does the negotiating of how things connect on the network, i.e. all data paths are routed through it. Your computer never connects directly to the printer, it all communication is passed around through the router.

If a router is configured and working properly, your computer can be operating in the 5 GHz band and the printer may be on the 2.4 GHz band and the router would take your requests on the 5 GHz band and direct it to the device on the 2.4 GHz band. That is how routers work. So there must be have been some change in the router that is not allowing this process to happen.

Now, if you actually have two different WiFi routers where one is actually your "2.4GHz network", then that is a totally different scenario. Is that actually your situation?

Have you tried rebooting your WiFi router?

Sometimes some routers can have issues with newly connected computers and actually need a hard reboot to rebuild their connection tables.

use the ethernet port

How far is the Mac mini away from the Wi-Fi router..?

Are there any appliances or solid metal objects in-between the Mac mini and router..?

Do you have any poorly shielded high speed USB cables, drives, other devices in-between the Mac mini and router..?

The Mac mini's Wireless Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Antenna is built into the bottom cover, making it more prone to interference and signal loss than other Mac models. see > Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference - Apple Support

Ian R. Brown wrote:

Sometimes I have had to interrogate the AI answers several times to narrow down the solution/culprit but I have always arrived at a solution.

It's important to keep in mind that 1) AI hallucinates and 2) it straight up lies. I was trying to find out about an obscure shoe brand from the seventies (don't ask). Gemini kept telling me it couldn't find anything. I kept giving it more suggestions. Finally, it came up with an answer describing exactly what I was looking for and giving details. I asked it if this was a factual answer or if it made it up in order to give me what I wanted. It admitted to making it up.

I also spent about an hour on Sunday trying to fix the syncing of my Apple Contacts birthday information to my Google Contacts. It repeatedly gave me directions that didn't match the reality of what was on screen. One round of instructions let to it duplicating all of my contacts. It finally got to the point where it told me to delete all my contacts in Google. I pointed out that my contacts were synced, and this could result in my losing all of my contacts. It was agreed that it was a possibility and that maybe I should contact Apple Support (despite the fact that it was demonstrably a problem with Google Contacts).

I'm not saying this because I think AI is bad. However, if you're asking it questions about something with which you're not familiar, there is a significantly less than zero chance that it will give you wrong information and you won't be able to tell. At least here, if someone gives a wrong answer, it is likely that three other people will jump all over it.

For what it's worth, I find Claude to be generally more accurate and significantly less sycophantic.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

...

However, if you're asking it questions about something with which you're not familiar, there is a significantly less than zero chance that it will give you wrong information and you won't be able to tell. At least here, if someone gives a wrong answer, it is likely that three other people will jump all over it.

Shouldn't that read as "...a significantly greater than zero chance..."?

😉

D.I. Johnson wrote:

Shouldn't that read as "...a significantly greater than zero chance..."?

Of course it should be! I wish I could say that this was a clever way to demonstrate my assertion that errors in forum posts will generally get pointed out (and quickly), but it was just a mistake...

In general, I have found most AI queries to be pretty much useless. More often than not, it refers to items or procedures that are outdated, incorrect, and totally made up and worse yet a mix of all three.

The only exception is when I have used it to identify "creatures" in photos using Google AI. The image recognition seems to be a strong point but also a scary point as it could be used to identify anyone, anywhere and record that information as if we aren't being tracked enough these days.

woodmeister50 wrote:

In general, I have found most AI queries to be pretty much useless. More often than not, it refers to items or procedures that are outdated, incorrect, and totally made up and worse yet a mix of all three.

I use AI quite a bit and find it very useful. It all depends on how and why you use it. I don't generally use it to search for things except in one case. I have had some good luck using Claude to help me identify short stories and books I remember reading but can't remember titles or authors.

I'm a research administrator. One of the things I do is budgets for grants. Sometimes they are very complex. I have Claude set up so that I can upload an anonymized budget and budget narrative and the grant guidelines. It will review and compare and generate a report that tells me where the budget doesn't conform to the funder guidelines and where the budget and the budget narrative don't agree. I can then do a review of the budget with my own eyes and the information in the report. This is extremely helpful. But it's important to understand that the parameters I've given Claude are very specific. I'm giving it the information that I want it to use. And I have ten years of experience reading grant guidelines and developing budgets.

I've also found AI very useful at creating forms based on specifications I've provided. In the past, I've spent days creating checklists for faculty on how to complete the components necessary for particular federal grants. These requirements change almost every year, so I would have to redo them. Now, I ask Claude to do it. Once I have that draft in hand, I can go through it to verify everything and edit it as needed. I check every link and every quote from federal policy documents. But it takes an hour instead of a day. Claude takes care of the formatting, which I find tedious.

What I don't do is ask AI questions for which I can't realistically evaluate the answers. AI is not magic. But nor is it useless.