I'm in IT Support, so one of our first questions to the end user is "Did you try rebooting?" They don't like to hear it, but sadly enough that often fixes the majority of issues.
The equivalent in the world of outdoor wood furnaces could be:
1. Take a full firebox load of wood and bake it in your kitchen oven at 250F for 8 hours.
2. Run this load in your stove and report back any problems.
Knowing this 12 years ago could probably have saved me a lot of headaches, backaches and heartaches.
I don't mean this to sound like a snooty jerk at all. What they TOLD us was dry wood, what we THINK is dry wood and what our moisture meter SAYS is dry wood, and what is ACTUALLY dry are sometimes very different. Water is a sneaky, cruel ba$t@rd. The only place it belongs is as a solid form in your favorite beverage.
Any other generic "Try this first" ideas?