Troubleshooting is very much like baking a cake. You can read the instructions, that is, follow the process and your cake will likely come out of the oven and taste and look great.
You can ignore the instructions and the best case is your cake, may taste ok, but won't look right and the texture will be poor. In other words, you won't reach your goal of having a nice cake to serve.
Troubleshooting Joomla! or any other computer system is a matter of separating the symptoms from the facts of the situation by following a process.
Often at times, when you are troubleshooting an issue, it's easy to accept the symptom as the problem, running off to treat it, rather than discover what caused it.
What I mean by that is, often at times a symptom is just that - a symptom. The root cause is what you are after. Resist the urge to accept the first thing you think is wrong as the final answer and not look further.
In this case, let's create a fantasy situation where...