Well, first check the obvious. Make sure there are no breakers (or fuses) tripped.

The next step is to carefully look at the last WORKING receptacle on the string and the first NONWORKING one (and in between) for loose connections, etc...

Also make sure that no GFCIs have tripped (they are the outlets with the little test/reset buttons on them usually seen in bathrooms but can be anywhere).

If it's one wall or just half an outlet it could be that it's wired to a switch. Check both upper and lower receptacles. I've lived in 3 houses that had switched outlets To turn on lights when you come in the door

I’ve been checking the wiring and making everything right. There is a light switch in the room that does nothing, so I’m assuming it goes to one of those outlets. A plug in wiring indicator says it’s ground/hot reverse. That means the black and white wires are flipped, correct? Even though the brass screws are on the hot/black wires and the ground/white wires are on the silver screws. I will say the light switch has two wires attached to it, a red one on top and a black one on the bottom. Everything I’ve read indicates the black one should be on top. Would it matter on a switch if I flip the wires? There is no ground wire on it, should there be? Besides working on this witch I’m at a loss. Thanks for the help in advance.

> I’m assuming it goes to one of those outlets.

You haven't tested it? Just plug in a light and flip the switch.

> Even though the brass screws are on the hot/black wires and

> the ground/white wires are on the silver screws.

I hope you mean that the neutral (white) wire is on the silver screw, NOT that the ground (bare or green) wire is. That would be bad.

If the recepts follow the correct color code, it should be apparent that the h/n reversal is elsewhere.

I would hope that the most ignorant DIYer hacking up his home's wiring would know enough to connect the black wire to the breaker and the white to the neutral bar in the panel. But check it.

Do you have some old knob and tube wiring in your house? I've seen h/n reversal in old houses where someone rewired the cellar but not the stories above, and reversed the old K&T where it connected to the new wiring (usually NM cable).

If you do have K&T, your receptacle checker should not be showing that you have a ground at all.

> the light switch has two wires attached to it, a red

> one on top and a
black one on the bottom.

That would be quite unusual with cable wiring on a single pole switch. Maybe not so extraordinary with K&T or conduit. But with K&T you almost always have ancient cloth-over-rubber type R wire, on which the colors are hard to identify.
Are you sure it's not a 3-way switch?

> Everything I’ve read indicates the black one
should be on top.

Where did you read that? Both are hot wires, so it doesn't matter.

If you're wiring a 3-way switch setup, just make it the same on both switches.

> There is no ground wire on [the switch], should there be?

On an older installation, no.

Is there a ground wire in the box? Is the box metal or plastic/fiberglass?

A picture is worth a thousand word.

Open up the switch box and snap a picture so that we can see everything that is coming into the box and what it's attached to.

Do the same with the receptacle box.

Here’s the light switch. The switch on the left is for the living room lights, the switch on the right is the one in question.

Here’s are the outlets that I found in the circuit. I must say when I turn off the breaker for the outlets, the lights in the living room still function. That makes me honk the switch in question doesn’t control any outlets in the room.

One thing I see right away that shouts "careless or ignorant work" is that some of the wires are wrapped counter-clockwise around the terminal screws. They should always go clockwise, so that when you tighten the screw, the wire is pulled in instead of pushed out.

There's a lot of exposed copper. The wires are not stripped neatly; it looks they were stripped with a pocket knife (at best). Some of the terminal screws don't look very tight; if true, that's a fire hazard. Save for the feed, the switch wires appear to be backstabbed (ugh). The NM sheath is pretty far into the box in at least one case.

Some may disagree, but I consider all those signs of a less-than-workmanlike installation.

From what I see of the right (14-3, I think) cable in the switch box, it appears that the power feed for both switches is coming from the box where the device switched by the right switch is. That seems a bit odd to me.

Add the h/n reversal, and I don't think I'd want the person who did this job to do any electrical work in my home.

One thing that I don't think has been asked.

Did these outlets (and the other random ones around the house) ever work? Were they working a few days ago and suddenly stopped?

Or did you just buy this house and these outlets have never worked?

As David stated, from the workmanship it's obvious that someone who doesn't know what they are doing has been playing around with the wiring. I think I'd advise that you just bite the bullet and call in an electrician to check everything over.

Amateur here but just wanted to share something that might help the OP understand the setup. I just changed a switched outlet that looked very similar. The reason you can turn a breaker on or off and have it affect only some sockets is that the switched outlet can be on an entirely different circuit. In my case there were 2 outlets controlled by the switch, but only one socket each the outlet was switched. Power for the switched outlets came from a "Lighting" circuit on the main panel, and power for the other outlets came from an "Outlets" circuit (as marked on the panel that is). From your pics it looks like the outlets are not that way since they have not broken out the side tabs to separate the two sockets. Just something to keep in mind if you ever figure out where that red wire comes from or goes to.