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Suppose you ask a question, say on Unix & Linux Stack Exchange, but after asking it, the question becomes irrelevant. Say for example you ask if you can fix network protocol(s) which Windows says have been deleted on your machine but after fiddling about on your laptop in a Linux terminal suddenly they reappear (you have restarted your machine before, it's not a Windows restart issue, and you have done nothing to directly fix the issue). Your question may be relevant to other users but no-one actually answered it directly, including yourself, but the route taken to fix the issue seems totally baffling. What do you do?

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There's a specific close reason for this:

Questions describing a problem that can't be reproduced and seemingly went away on its own (or went away when a typo was fixed) are off-topic as they are unlikely to help future readers.

That is available in the flag menu when you reach 50 reputation and, after 3000 reputation, it's in the close menu. If this is your question and you can't vote to close it, you can always delete it as long as it's unanswered.

Alternatively, post an answer explaining what you did that resulted in the fix. Even if that's not necessarily reproducible, just say "I poked it with a stick and now it's fine". Expect the question to be closed and deleted unless there's a teachable moment there though.

Basically, it's up to you. Delete it or post an answer or flag to close as too localized (the close reason given above).

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  • Good points. I had an example myself of a "poked it with a stick and now it's fine" situation that did include a somewhat teachable moment. (On the vi/Vim stack exchange.) This answer brought it back to mind.
    – Wildcard
    Mar 30, 2016 at 9:03

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