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> users saying something doesn't work, only for us to point out something simple that they forgot to do, or the instructions they totally didn't read, and then the error magically goes away

If that's how your software works, you're doing it wrong. It means there was little to no design planning. The error should tell the user/developer what to do to avoid the error thus avoiding an angry email in the first place.

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Are you saying users read error messages? People come to me for help when things break, and ~60% of the time I save them by reading the error message and doing what it says.

Are your error messages readable and obviously relevant?

I would argue that developers should aim for 0 error messages ever. If your software requires an action to be performed before moving on, then redirect them to the action, highlight the point of interest, and give a little alert at the top that tells them what to do. When you have a scary error message, users get scared.

In this case I'm talking about software I didn't develop. Also, developers are not immune to this. Very often it is a compiler or runtime error that tells you where the issue is and sometimes even how to fix it. Person/developer sees a red message and panics before attempting to resolve.

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