I have the opposite experience: 'customers' (in my case, these always have been colleagues from management/sales/marketing) always describe their problem in terms of a solution. Worse, that solution may not even be appropriate for solving their problem.

Famous example: 'we want GPS'. Turns out the need is for navigation by the blind inside buildings (=> poor signal, if any, and a need for one meter or so resolution) or for finding entrances to buildings (that data did not exist 10 years ago and probably doesn't even today. Say, you get out of a bus at a large hospital. Where is its entrance door? Can you even tell what side of the road it is on?)

Sometimes technologies get attributed magical qualities that you cannot get out of people's heads.