Is it normal to be stopped from doing experiments for months due to "equipment malfunctioning" during masters? I am currently doing a medical science research masters with a difficult supervisor. Due to two incidents of equipment malfunctions (equipment that I am using), I was stopped from doing any experiments for more than three months in total. During the three months I did almost nothing. Over the entire 6 months that I have been here, I have only had one month during which I was able to generate any sufficient results (the other months I was learning the technique).  My supervisor rejected my proposal to switch to a new technique or use a different equipment set-up. What worries me is that I won't be able to gather sufficient results to write my thesis by July (which is the deadline), and I haven't even started my masters project.

I am wondering whether anybody else has similarly experienced this situation before and whether this is normal during your PhD i.e. doing absolutely nothing for 3 months or more due to the excuse of "equipment faults"? Do you just switch to a different experiment or part of the project which utilize different techniques? Could somebody please help me understand why my supervisor is doing this - is this normal for labs which lack funding? 

What should I do? Should I make a formal complaint to the university about my masters supervisor? If I do so, I am afraid that the animosity between me and my supervisor will be beyond repair and he will not support me at all in finishing in time for the deadline. If it keeps on like this, I won't get enough results to sufficiently write the project thesis.
In experimental sciences, such incidents are unfortunately common.  I do a lot of work in synthetic biology, for example, and it's not unusual to have a lab run into serious equipment or materials problems that significantly delay the work of the lab.  For example, one lab I was working with had a critical machine start producing strange results and it took a couple of months, several corrupted experiments, more than one technician visit, and also a change of protocols in order to debug it.

If the lab you are in is actively working to fix the equipment issues, and it is just taking a long time, that would not be unusual.  If they are not but are just neglecting it, then that is a very bad sign and you need to talk to the people who run your program to find out what to do.

In either case, you should make arrangements, either with your advisor or with the program heads, about how to adjust expectations given the equipment problems. Equipment issues should not be your problem or delay your graduation at a Masters level (Ph.D. is a different matter).