Charles wrote:

Phantom? For heavens sake, let's get real here. There is no such thing as
a phantom voltage ... there is a voltage that shows up with no load and
drops to near zero with a load ... bad connection!


NO. That is not what he wrote.

"In fact, there is power in the sockets whether
the switch is on or off."

He is using a $6 pseudo-test instrument that is completely unreliable,
which can easily pick up inductive transient signals and give a false
positive.

To CooSer:

Get yourself a real mult-meter to test the actual wiring before the
fixture. Don't use inductive probes or gimmicky light bulb testers.
Use a real voltmeter to test the *wiring* first, then you can work on
diagnosing a bad fixture.