Damn, a whole hour at the drop amp before you even looked at the ground block? That's brutal, lol. Kittens are literally the worst for that, they see a little black wire and think it's a toy. I had one chew through a phone line once and the customer blamed the modem for two weeks, only found out when I saw the little teeth marks. The weird thing is the timing though, like they only mess with it when you're not looking, so you get these random dropouts that never match up with anything. Plastic conduit is a solid move, I usually wrap that stuff in that metal spiral guard too because some cats just love the taste of plastic. Glad you finally caught it, those intermittent gremlins will make you lose your mind.

@felix488 sounds like you learned that lesson the hard way, hope your chair didn't take you down with it.

Right up there with "please hold" for life advice.