Stopped trusting my multimeter after a bad call in Bakersfield

Was diagnosing a dead outlet at a warehouse in Bakersfield last month. Meter said 120 volts, so I told the guy it was a loose neutral. He called another tech, who found the real issue was a tripped GFCI upstream on a different circuit. My meter was fine, but I was testing at the wrong point. Now I always trace the circuit back to the panel before I open anything. Anyone else had a test reading that sent you down the wrong path?

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colethomas28d ago

Was chasing a phantom ground fault in a house one time, meter kept showing voltage on a neutral that was definitely not supposed to be hot. Spent two hours swapping out breakers and junction boxes before I realized my test leads were tangled in a way that made the meter read my own body capacitance. Felt like a real jackass when I straightened the wires and everything tested clean. Now I always wiggle the leads before I trust a reading, and I've walked away from two perfectly fine panels since then just because the numbers looked weird. Your Bakersfield thing is way more logical than mine, at least you had a reason to be looking where you were.