The "Black Screen Of Death"

      That's what I faced this morning when I got in to work. Not initially, as our main newsroom program did start up. But when I tried logging on to the 'net, I was met with "Connection Failed" messages. I hit "restart", which did not work. I powered off and on again. That did not work. Thinking it was just my workstation affected by an update, I went into the news booth and tried there. "Black Screen of Death". I ever tried a different workstation. That did not work.
   Now entering full 'panic' mode, I did the one thing I do not like doing. I called our engineer at 04:30. He managed to walk me through a re-boot of one of the servers, and it worked! He had us back up and running before 05:00. For a while.
   The whole she-bang started acting up again at 07:30, and by 08:00 internet was down again. By this time, our engineer was in station, and had us back up again in short order.
   What caused the problem? He mentioned something about an upgrade to the server or whatever. I'm a tech dunderhead, and admit it. I can start and power off a computer, work with some social media, etc. But when it comes to the guts of these things, you might as well hand me a quill and parchment.
   Have a happy weekend!

TTFN