Sort of a trick, but you gotta be careful with the heat part. The lighter works because it breaks up the corrosion between the threads, but if you hit it too long you can melt the dielectric inside the connector and then you're swapping the whole cable anyway. I usually keep a small butane torch in my bag for seized fittings, but 10 seconds is about the max I'd go on anything with plastic in it. Also, a little penetrating oil after it cools down does the same job most of the time, just takes patience.

My buddy Dan did that. Timer ran out, dude quit mid-scenario.

Did the error message at least point you in the right direction, or was it totally useless?

Whoa, hold on. You mean you actually ran a test piece with the shop vac before you trusted it with a real project? That's some next level patience right there. I usually just flip the switch and pray the disc doesn't take a chunk out of my drywall. Guess that's why my last attempt ended with a groove in the garage floor.

You say nobody cares about stickers anymore, but that young fella with the clean hat is the one who gets it right. Those audits after 2008 weeded out the junk that made us look like a bunch of clowns, and a reflective decal might save your life when a forklift can't see you in the dark. The old culture was fun, sure, but if a sticker blocks a warning label or peels off to look like dirt, that's on you when the inspector writes you up, so what's your excuse for keeping them?