Recently I asked a question on SO that was closed for not being specific enough. I couldn't recreate the problem for others, I think was the issue, and I was hoping to get some general "try this" answers just to steer me in the right direction. But it seems they don't want that, they want specific questions with exactly 1 correct answer.

Maybe you could not have recreated the problem but you could have indeed described the symptoms and the problem statement. It's not written anywhere in the FAQ but SO places the subliminal message to write better, communicate better and research better. The more you do this, the more you understand your own problem and you will be able to reach your solution.

See: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-withou...

Did some digging and found this

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8449696/project-doesnt-re...

This doesn't look like something to point someone in the right direction. Yes, you are working with proprietary code but you could think of ways to describe what is happening without disclosing information otherwise you are making users play the 20 questions game with your question (as noted by a moderator). A high rep and top contributor to the site (Jon Skeet) was trying to help you but you didn't seem to want to reciprocate with more information. As I said earlier, clear communication is key in SO, don't make users point in the dark. You are wasting their time and yours with the back and forth clarifications.