I think the part about using computer heavily for over 20 years is a strange admission. Has your memory failed? The amount of space typically allotted to programming utilities along with the fact that such tools were, in the past, only used by people who understood exactly the task at hand means that the user feedback part of the programming is very limited by those constraints.
Hire a professional if you experience an inability to understand what you see.
Feedback from programs as well as error information typically take the form of something to indicate that a change is needed and since the amount of possible changes typically exceeds the amount of space allowed to react to those with a message, messages are limited and frequently must be translated by the person using the tool.
After a single repeat of a message the proper approach is to say to yourself “Hmm, what exactly is causing this response and what is it really saying to me?”
For instance, the tool is telling you that it does not see anything that it is capable of updating and it includes a few extra words that fit into the space available for error or help messages and they chose to use the words that fit the most frequently encountered user situations that would generate the error. If you can not reason it out then go looking for help.
The concept of repeatedly doing the same thing and getting the same undesired result sort of fits into that old adage that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
When you feel that a tool is driving you crazy then is the time to ask questions and find a different behavior.
The tool is simply telling you that it looked and found nothing to do and making some suggestion about an action you could take. If you were one of the probably larger percentage of people who saw that message because … oops I forgot to plug in the device… then the message would have been helpful and you would have connected and completed if the device were at a level that needed upgrading and a type that applied to the tool you were using.
I remember purchasing a 10MB hard drive in 1987 for $800(yes, MegaByte as in storage just a bit larger than 10 of the current 800K floppies in use at that time) , using our 33.333% developer discount.
Today we routinely pay less than $100.00 for drives in the hundreds of gigabytes or even terabyte sizes. How much money should be invested in holding the hand of a user when the cost is so low?
Perhaps we should approach the drive manufacturers and ask that they raise their prices so they can keep full time hand holders on staff to help us learn how to use the tools.
