Fax Is Cursed: A Tech Support Tale of Ancient Machines and Modern Madness
Let’s be honest: if you’re reading this in 2024 and you haven’t thought about a fax machine for years, you’re not alone. But for some unlucky souls in tech support, faxes are the monster that just won’t die. Enter a Reddit post from r/TalesFromTechSupport titled “Fax is cursed,” where one tech’s three-hour odyssey into the bowels of fax troubleshooting had them questioning reality, patience, and the very nature of modern business.
Ready to relive the horror (and hilarity) of troubleshooting a technology that refuses to fade quietly into the night? Grab your coffee, because this is a journey through the haunted halls of office tech.
The Fax Files: When Ancient Machines Attack
Our story starts innocently enough. A customer can’t send or receive long-distance faxes. They do the right thing and call their fax vendor—who promptly blames the phone company. Naturally, suspicion falls on the tech support team’s hosted phone service. Cue the classic blame game, a ritual as old as fax itself.
The diligent tech, u/AmighettisSpecial, goes above and beyond: verifying the long-distance carrier, switching services, running endless tests. Local faxing works. Outbound faxing works. Every piece fits—except the faxes still won’t go through. Or so the customer says. The real kicker? Every detail is drip-fed, contradictory, and confusing. First, nothing works. Then, maybe sending works. Actually, maybe they’re receiving? It’s the kind of shifting narrative that makes you long for the sweet, binary clarity of “on” or “off.”
Three hours in, the truth emerges: Faxes do come in, but after the first page, page two prints over and over, or comes out as a partial page. That’s when the “aha!” moment strikes. The culprit? ECM retry loop—a feature called Error Correction Mode. Disabling it makes everything work instantly. Ancient technology, arcane settings, and a solution that feels like a magic spell.
Fax: The Zombie Technology That Won’t Die
If you think fax is a relic forgotten by everyone, think again. The Reddit comments are a goldmine of fax-related trauma and bewilderment. As u/itenginerd points out, “There are two kinds of users: the kind that haven't seen a fax in five or ten years and have forgotten they existed, and the kind that live and die by their fax machine. There is no in between…” And apparently, the second group is both immortal and entirely resistant to change.
Several commenters share tales of entire departments clinging to faxes for dear life—sometimes processing invoices by receiving them via email, then faxing them to themselves, only to print and scan them again for another system. (Yes, really.) As u/pretendadult4now recounts, one department refused e-faxing, instead printing emails, scanning them, uploading them, and then filing the hard copies. Only when they begged for more filing cabinets did management notice the madness. Six months later, their workflow was mercifully modernized.
And don’t think this is limited to small businesses or medical offices; as u/RatherGoodDog notes, even “multi-billion dollar US-based multinationals” still send purchase orders by fax. In 2026. The mind boggles.
The Blame Game and the Agony of No Closure
No tech support story would be complete without a round of finger-pointing. Our OP spends hours proving it’s not their phone service, only to learn that the fax vendor has been whispering tales of “lots of complaints” about their system. The result? Zero apology, zero thanks, and a gnawing lack of closure that only a true IT professional can fully appreciate. As u/bytemage wryly puts it, “You fixed the problem, so obviously you were causing the problem ;)”
The comments echo this pain. u/TF2PublicFerret quips, “Why is it that people treat tech support like a visit to the doctor or dentist? They might fudge details for embarrassment reasons. When it comes to tech support, we don't give a f***, just be honest and we can get to the bottom of it.” The OP agrees: just give us the facts so we can all go home.
Faxing Into the Future (Or Not)
Is there hope for a fax-free tomorrow? Some commenters see the light at the end of the tunnel. u/Kurgan_IT happily reports, “In the last 3 years or so, I finally have stopped worrying about fax because everyone just forgot about it.” Others, like u/NiiWiiCamo, marvel at fax’s stubborn robustness: “Imho fax is a super interesting tech that is surprisingly robust for what it does. The issue is with the users and institutions that somehow enshrined that tech…”
Still, if you’re in certain fields—healthcare, law, government—don’t hold your breath. Fax will be around as long as there’s one person left who remembers how to use it (or claims they need it, but hasn’t sent a fax in five years, as u/Gandhi_of_War humorously observes).
And for those just learning about Error Correction Mode (ECM)? OP explains: it breaks fax data into blocks, resending corrupted blocks in a loop if errors are detected. The result: infinite page two. Sometimes, only a tech support wizard knows how to break the spell.
Conclusion: One Fax to Rule Them All
So next time you see a dusty fax machine, give it a respectful nod—or a wide berth. If you’re one of the brave souls in tech support, may your troubleshooting be swift and your customers honest. And if you’ve got your own cursed fax story, share it in the comments—because misery (and faxes) love company.
As the community would say: Fax is a four-letter word. And yes, it’s still cursed.
Original Reddit Post: Fax is cursed.