Some rare bits of brain lie here

We're having a problem with one of the library portals. It worked fine yesterday. It works fine on public PCs in the library. It works fine when someone logs in at home. It is completely inaccessible on library staff PCs. We're used to it timing out on our PCs — everything on the internet times out on the corporate network at one time or another because it's so damned slow — but this is a new wrinkle.

I log the call with the corporate helpdesk. They proxy into my PC and see for themselves. After twenty minutes' worth of trial and error they find that if you search for the server's name and then enter the IP address as the URL then it'll open up a session on the portal. Which stays open until you change pages. This is peculiar on so many levels I'm boggled. But not any more so than when I'm told:

"It's an application problem. You'll have to contact the supplier."

Err...

"How is it an application problem? It's working for the public but not for us. What's changed overnight? I'm not allowed on the server. The supplier's not been allowed on the server since the software was installed."

"Well it can't be a network problem. It must be an application problem."

I do as I'm told and report it to the supplier. My account manager 'phones me up:

"This isn't so much passing the buck as throwing it bodily out of the window."

"Can you tell them that? They won't believe me."