I had a bedroom ceiling fan go out. It's on a circuit that feeds outlets and ceiling lights in two bedrooms + 1/2 bath in my 60's ranch using 12 gauge with ground wire. In some legs of the circuit I found 17V between black and white wires & 123V between black and ground wire. Outlets on other legs of the circuit show proper voltages. 1) Voltage on the ground wire instead of white wire means there is a short or bad connection somewhere in the circuit, right?

Hi there, OK first time posting here, hoping someone can help me. The fan in my ground floor bathroom suddenly stopped working. The pilot light on the switch is on so there is power to it but the 'timer buttons' (5 mins, 10 mins, etc...) simply do not work and turn the fan on as needed. I opened up the panel and found this mess (picture attached). I bought a new switch and tried it, same result. Things seem to be wired OK but the only thing that seems odd to me was that there was a cap inside the box sitting at the bottom and 2 uncapped wires (1 red and 1 one black) that I have marked using arrows on the pic. Both uncapped wires are coming from the back of the box, not from either the light or fan switch. Is it possible that something came loose and caused this? I'm not sure if the photo is enough to highlight the issue, but I can map out the wiring in detail if you think that would help. Of course, the other possibility is that the fan has died but I thought I'd tackle the switch first just in case. Thanks Joe