It has to be something that is nearly fully outside your control but is affecting you, there are probably milder problems as examples but I think this apt.

In the metaphor, half of the answers are asking you to do a useless workaround, blame you and/or are irrelevant to solving the problem. Hence the leak, where the answers are telling you to try running your taps for 10 minutes, put a bucket under the leak, telling you that there is no leak and that’s actually a water fountain, etc.