... and in this case is your issue.
No it's not. He is seeing a single row of boxes which means that the display is getting power and that his contrast voltage is adequate (but probably not optimum). If the contrast voltage were too high (compared to GND) the display would be blank and if too low there would be some dimmer boxes in the other row.
His controller is not being properly initialized which is due to a wiring or programming error.
Don