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I attempted to install a ceiling light in my bedroom. There was a pre-installed light box, covered with a plastic disc, containing a black wire, a white wire, and a ground wire. When I installed the light, I successfully got the light to work, however now the light in my closet (on the same breaker, presumably the same circuit) won't turn on. I've since detached the bedroom light from the ceiling, jimmied the wires around to try and reconnect anything that was disconnected, as well as fully uninstalled the bedroom light. Nothing has been able to get the closet light to come back on. Anything else I should try before I call an electrician?

As a note, the building was built in the 2000s, so old shoddy wiring is (hopefully) not the problem. I did use LED bulbs while testing the bedroom light.

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    You'll have to provide more detail. Are there really only three wires in the ceiling box? I can't imagine how you could've messed that up. You don't want to connect black and white, though. That would short when you flip the switch.
    – isherwood
    Commented Jul 26 at 1:18
  • @isherwood there really are only three wires.... to be fair, the light I installed works! I connected black to black, white to white, ground to ground. I feel like I disrupted a circuit somehow, but I'm not sure how to undisrupt it.
    – Ben
    Commented Jul 26 at 1:26
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    Have you used a multimeter to measure voltage between black and white, black and ground, and white an ground at both the bedroom and closet connections? Both with switch on and off? That can help pin down whether wiring or fixtures are the problem.
    – Armand
    Commented Jul 26 at 7:38
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    The closet light should be connected in parallel to the bedroom light; perhaps in fiddling with the bedroom wires, you loosened a poorly-connected junction in the wall that led to the closet light. Being built in the 2000s could certainly be (new) shoddy construction. According to Code, any wire connection would have to be accessible in a junction box somewhere, so hopefully you can figure out where the closet and bedroom light wiring is connected.
    – Armand
    Commented Jul 26 at 7:43
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    Did you check the closet light bulb still works. Possible it died when putting in the new bedroom light. Odd, but two things/problems do happen together sometimes.
    – crip659
    Commented Jul 26 at 11:40

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Yup, the light bulbs both happened to burn out right when I was testing the ceiling light. Thanks everyone, situation resolved!

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    – Mike Waters
    Commented Jul 27 at 16:37

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