Why was having and not had: "he was having trouble finding the right packaging" vs "he had trouble finding the right packaging"

Question

On the sleeve reissue of the Chris Bell single "I am the cosmos" (record store day 2018) I found these sentences:

A tape of the recording arrived in the mail several weeks after the phone call;it took that long because, Chris said, he was having trouble "finding the right packaging," I was never sure what this meant.

Why not "had" instead of "was having"? Is it to emphasize the duration of the trouble of "finding the right packaging"? Because at the time of receiving the tape there were no more trouble of finding the right packaging so I think we could use "had"

Answer 1

Please note that this is not a shining example of English writing and the text may not be a very clear expression of what the writer intended.

Having said that, if you do want to analyse it in detail, you need to treat it as an example of reported speech, where Chris Bell actually said

I am having trouble finding the right packaging - present continuous

Converting that to reported speech, you backshift the verb tense:

Chris said that he was having trouble finding the right packaging - past continuous

To end up with had, you would have to backshift this:

I have trouble finding the right packaging

Present simple is not usually used to describe the situation at the time of speaking, so most people would interpret this as a statement of general truth: Chris always has trouble finding the right packaging. When reporting a general truth, the backshift is not necessary, so the reported version would most likely be

Chris said that he has trouble finding the right packaging

So, if Chris was speaking at the time that he was having troubles, was having is the best option. If Chris was talking about the trouble after he had found a solution, he could have said:

I was having trouble finding the right packaging - past continuous
I had trouble finding the right packaging - simple past

The first emphasises the length of time that the trouble existed, and the second emphasises the completion. The reported speech versions would be

Chris said that he had been having trouble finding the right packaging - past perfect continuous
Chris said that he had had trouble finding the right packaging past perfect