The help I offered and the help they actually needed

Someone asked me for help with a problem last month. I gave them a solution. A good one. Thoughtful, detailed, exactly what they had described.

They did not use it. I could tell because the problem was still there weeks later.

So I asked what happened, and they explained it in a way that made everything clear. My solution solved the problem they had written down. They were stuck on a different one, and they had described the symptom instead of the cause.

I do the same thing when I ask for help. I describe what I think the problem is, and the person answering gives me an answer to the wrong question, and I walk away with a good solution to something that did not need solving.

Now I try to ask one more question before I help someone. Not to be difficult, but because the first description is rarely the real thing.

Do you ask for help with the real problem, or the one you can put into words? And how often is the real one underneath?