Gnarly Error Messages 1315
Veeru writes "In my career, I have run across some whopper error messages, but a call from the mainframe sysop one night beat them all: 'We are experiencing MVS processor spin loops, the programs are running while holding a disabled CPU. This is causing XCF communication delays to the point where we are losing VTAM RTP routing, are suffering OSPF adjacency failures on TCP/IP dynamic routing and MIM VCF failures. Whatever this code is, it should NOT be propagated to production or we run the risk of losing the development plex if XCF signaling is adversely impacted by processor disabled spin loops'. My friend once got an error message 'Error 2 while trying to report error 2'. I would be curious to hear from the Slashdot community on encounters with other bizarre error messages."
Mac Bomb (Score:4, Funny)
Keyboard error. (Score:5, Funny)
MAC OS (Score:1, Funny)
(with no other choice.)
Gnarly. (Score:5, Funny)
translation... (Score:5, Funny)
Out-of-range error (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately, users never saw this error, as the program ran out of memory while composing it.
A really, really bad one... (Score:5, Funny)
D'oh -Homer Simpson.
Error (Score:5, Funny)
I must remember to put an error message here
And in another:
Whoops !
If you see this error please report the code as I have forgotten put an error message here
Printer on fire (Score:5, Funny)
error message (Score:5, Funny)
"You need help. Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx for assistance."
Amiga Error (Score:4, Funny)
Remember the Amiga 500/1500 error message that said
"Guru Medatation"
Gotta be the classic MacOS... (Score:5, Funny)
"An Error Occurred Because An Error Occurred"
Ah, so that's why!
The best BeOS error (Score:5, Funny)
I got that one a few times; always memorable. Almost as fun as seeing your GUI melt into the joy of a KDL:
"Welcome to Kernel Debugging Land!"
"Your system date is set to year 8192. (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes Barney plays on his own (Score:5, Funny)
"Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on his own." Scary. [microsoft.com]
Gnarly error messages (Score:5, Funny)
$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Score:5, Funny)
Undefined? (Score:5, Funny)
While doing some JavaScript programming with and old version of Netscape:
Undefined is not definedAppleWorks GS (Score:5, Funny)
Ebonics Error Msg (Score:2, Funny)
My personal favorite: Somethin' be hosed with da proc
Real Media (Score:3, Funny)
Computer error messages (Score:1, Funny)
Error #65: Database on vacation - call travel agent?
Error #96: Database corrupt - contact Crime Control?
Error #4Ni8: Database spawning duplicates - protection failed.
REALITY.DAT not found. Atempting to restore Universe......REALITY.SYS Corrupted Unable to recover Universe....Press Esc key to reboot Universe, or any other key to continue...
REALITY.SYS corrupted reboot Universe (Y/N)?
USER ERROR: replace user and press any key to continue.
Volume in Drive C: TOO_LOUD!
Compression failed - E)at chocolate cake?
Process failed - A)bort, R)etry, or F)ind another job?
Press [ESC] to detonate or any other key to explode.
BREAKFAST.COM halted... cereal port not responding!
Virus detected! P)our chicken soup on motherboard?
.signature not found! reformat hard drive? [Y/N]
Backup not found! A)bort, R)etry or P)anic?
Spellchecker not found. Press [CTRL][ALT][DEL] to continue
Not Ready Reading Drive A:...File Not Saved...Press [CTRL][ALT][DEL] to continue...
A)bort, R)etry or S)elfdestruct?
A)bort, R)etry, I)gnore, V)alium?
A)bort, R)etry, I)nfluence with large hammer?
A)bort, R)etry, P)lead in vain?
Backup not found: A)bort, R)etry, M)assive heart failure?
Bad command or file name. Go stand in the corner.
Close your eyes and press escape three times.
DYNAMIC LINKING ERROR: Your mistake is now everywhere.
Computer possessed? Try DEVICE=C:\EXOR.SYS
SENILE.COM found... Out Of Memory.
APATHY ERROR: Don't bother striking any key.
ZAP! Process discontinued. Enter any 12digit prime number to resume.
COFFEE.EXE missing: Insert Cup and Press Any Key
C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL
C:\DOS C:\DOS\RUN RUN\DOS\RUN
Access denied: nah nah na nah nah!
Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
BREAKFAST.COM halted: Cereal Port Not Responding
Bad command. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaay...
File not found: Should I fake it? (Y/N)
Smash forehead on keyboard to continue...
Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.
Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...
ACCESS DENIED. (Score:1, Funny)
"ERROR: SUCCESS!" (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite windows error: (Score:4, Funny)
Though now on NT/2000 these errors are logged in the handy-dany event logger.
Oooooops. (Score:4, Funny)
There's always the old favorite "This application has performed a fatal error and will be shut down: Windows" and the similar "This file appears to be corrupted or infected, and should be replaced: Symantec AntiVirus." I'll post the screenshot of the antivirus one if i find it.
Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo (Score:5, Funny)
if ($a > 0){
#something
}elsif($a 0){
#something
}elsif($a = 0){
#something
}else{
die "Error: You shouldn't see this."
};
A Few Windows Error messages (Score:5, Funny)
(2) 01B - Error Removing Temp File; Kernel.dll Will Be Substituted
(3) 01C - Wrong Disk Formatted. Sorry About That.
(4)Title: setup32.exe - error in application
The instruction "0x77e0a053" points to memory at "0x0f1366b8". The data was not transferred into RAM because of an I/O error in "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That's a lot of zeros... I thought addresses were only 32 bits long in Windows2000...
cute error msg (Score:5, Funny)
I like this far more than is acceptable:
>cat food
>cat: cannot open food
Apollo workstation (Score:5, Funny)
> ?
You must be from Prime. Use 'h' for help.
Prime was Apollo's competitor at the time.
Hedley
Dr. Watson caused a Dr. Watson (Score:5, Funny)
Also, twice when using Veritas Backup Exec NT 7.3 I received a warning error messages stating that there were over 1 billion administrators currently connected to the system, so I should be careful making changes. I wasn't aware Backup Exec was so popular.
Could the Dell dude do gnarly error messages? (Score:5, Funny)
Error Msg (Score:2, Funny)
# rm -f
#
LOL Errors (Score:2, Funny)
I can't remember which game it was, something under linux, I got the error "HOLY $HIT there's an error!" Open source kicks a$$
My Favorite SQL Error Message (Score:5, Funny)
PC Load Letter (Score:2, Funny)
make love (Score:3, Funny)
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
One Linux, One Windows (Score:3, Funny)
"Error: Cannot read from cdrom: device is read only"
My favorite windows error didn't actually happen to me, but I saw it. A friend's win98 box blue screened and presented this as the first line of the error:
"Dindos Error"
We had a good hoot over this in the dorm.
HAL9000 (Score:5, Funny)
linux (Score:5, Funny)
***Kernel panic: I have no root and I want to scream
if you don't tell the kernel where to find it's root filesystem.
Travis
Roxio EZ-CD Creator (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Apple's MPW C compiler famous for its error msg (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Interface Hall of Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
error: "The parameter is correct"
In Delphi (Score:2, Funny)
Error message: Abstract error.
Re:Amiga Error (Score:2, Funny)
Drama queen software (Score:2, Funny)
Way to diagnose the problem...
HTTP 503.1 (Score:5, Funny)
got this after an online registration... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, that told me a lot too.
My Best Ever (Score:4, Funny)
Error #112233:
Catastrophic Failure
And then it continued to play the Divx movie fine....
Re:Real Media (Score:2, Funny)
And a screenshot of the support page [ufl.edu] opened when clicking "More info"...
:)
cbd.
If you can see this press OK (Score:3, Funny)
Message i got when installing Windows XP
Re: translation... (Score:5, Funny)
I think the old Amgias used to have a "Guru Meditation Error" for certain errors
Great old Amiga error message... (Score:5, Funny)
'Cannot mark bad blocks because the block used for marking bad blocks is bad.'
Say THAT 10 times fast.
I've been telling this wonderful story to my computer friends for ages, and finally, I have an online outlet for it! Yay!
Other humorous error messages (Score:5, Funny)
'is' is not defined
I once got a Windows message telling me to insert the CD labeled 'Windows 98' into the floppy drive C: (really! all three in one!)
But my favorite was an old mainframe warning:
Warning: Starting system abort routine. Enter 'go' to continue or 'no' to stop.
To this day I don't know whether 'go' would continue aborting, or continue running, nor whether 'no' would stop running, or stop aborting!
Error: (Score:2, Funny)
Error: Operation completed successfully.
No indication of what software generated it or why.
On windows of course.
PCAnywhere 9.2 error message (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q325038 (Score:5, Funny)
Norton Anti-Virus 3.x on Win95 (Score:3, Funny)
After a 20+minute download (with 33.6kbps isp)I launched the Virus Definition Update package only to get the confirmation:
"The following file may have a Virus, contiue anyway?"
This was a NortonAV popup messagebox, not netscape or ie.
Win98 Device Manager (Score:2, Funny)
"The device is not working properly because the device is not working properly"
Thanks Bill for the info!
Re:Illegal Operation (Score:4, Funny)
"System Error: You need to contact technical support."
Unfortunately, the guy in the next cube over wasn't much help...
All MVS error messages (Score:5, Funny)
ERROR: Error on open macro at the address indicated
PROGRAMMER ACTION: Fix and rerun.
No joke.
SCO Unix Error (Score:2, Funny)
Thanks for reminding me (Score:5, Funny)
____________________________
Internet Explorer
Line: 142
Char: 7
Error: 'null' is null or not an object
Code:0
URL: http://jobs.microsoft.co.uk/working.asp
________
http://remember.mine.nu/null.jpg [remember.mine.nu]
Re:Not funny on its own but (Score:3, Funny)
Edit your error messages! (Score:3, Funny)
Windows XP crashed.
I am the blue screen of death.
No one hears your screams.
One for some disk-scanning tool was:
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and loss of data.
Guess which has occurred.
Then there's the
+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++
+++MELON MELON MELON+++
+++REDO FROM START+++
error, copied from The Hogfather
Laugh along with gnu (Score:3, Funny)
My personal (own experiences) top 9 list! (Score:3, Funny)
2. MS Outlook: The COM Transaction Integrator Resync TP service depends on the SnaBase service which failed to start because of the following error: The operation completed successfully.
3. Cannot copy 16SID_~1. The file exists.
4. MS FrontPage: Out of memory while attempting to allocate 0 byte.
5. MS Word: Cannot execute the command since Unknown is busy.
6. MS Windows Update: This update solves the security problem with an uncontrolled buffer in the SNMP service in Windows XP. You can find more information in MS Security Bulletin MS02-006. Download the problem now to stop malicious users from
7. The window Internet Explorer or the ActiveX-control on this page is busy. If you close this window there might be problems. Do you wish to close the window? [OK/Cancel]
8. Winsock Error: -10000. No Error.
9. Dreamweaver: An unnamed file contains an invalid path. [OK]
Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo (Score:4, Funny)
die "Error: You shouldn't see this unless I forgot a less than sign (or Slashdot removed it)."
Re:Apple's MPW C compiler famous for its error msg (Score:5, Funny)
"You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler."
Oh for the days when Apple had a since of humor.
Actually it's F1 (Score:5, Funny)
RMN
~~~
System Administrator (Score:3, Funny)
"Please contact your system administrator."
- I am the fucking adminsitrator and I still don't have a fucking clue!
Red Screen of Death (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:4, Funny)
Clippit has performed an illegal operation and will be arrested.
From an old issue of PC Magazine:
Error 23 occured when attempting to report that error 23 occured.
Re:Interface Hall of Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
Error: Success
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:5, Funny)
Now for some snapshots I took myself. My personal favs include KDE's "Sound Server fatal error: cpu overload, aborted" (sorry no pic), this priceless one from Outlook, [216.136.200.194] (I can't make this shit up) KDE's 3D take on the Mac's age-old bomb concept, GNOME doing what it does best [216.136.200.194], and you can't forget Linus' famous "Aiee!" message when the Linux kernel panics.
ResEdit and Mac OS X (Score:4, Funny)
Good times.
triv
My first unix error... (Score:4, Funny)
-Chris
Funky error message (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:3, Funny)
"YOU HAVE COMMITTED AN INEXPLICABLE ERROR" (Score:3, Funny)
The Dreaded /. Error Message: (Score:5, Funny)
[root@localhost]% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].
[root@localhost]% gotta light?
no match.
[root@localhost]% ^What is saccharine?
Bad substitute.
[root@localhost]% cat "food in cans"
cat: can't open food in cans
[root@localhost]% rm God
God not found.
[root@localhost]% talk VladimirPutin@Kremlin
Cannot find VladimirPutin@Kremlin: Your party is not logged on.
More funny UNIX commands here. [cornell.edu]
SWTP prompt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Keyboard error. (Score:5, Funny)
continue" message, but I've never seen it.
someone's in the kitchen (Score:5, Funny)
WinNT (Score:2, Funny)
failed to start because of the following error:
The operation completed successfully.
-Windows NT Server v3.51-
Error 95: Bad user input, replace user and try again
"Unsafe Removal of Device" (Score:5, Funny)
First windows error message that actually was telling the truth
PC LOAD LETTER?? (Score:2, Funny)
Topez Sound Studio (Score:2, Funny)
Shit.
Re:Illegal Operation (Score:5, Funny)
I once worked with this woman with poor vision who was hysterical because something about an "illegal abortion" had appeared on her machine.
She said that she had advised a girl who had made some mistakes on such matters but never was actually involved in such a thing. Only later she realised what it really said.
Linux errors are the best (Score:3, Funny)
Messages from other planets (Score:5, Funny)
Certain conditions, (such as a reboot) were generally accompanied by broadcast messages that would (in our case) be sent to hundreds of dumb terminals in about 12 different cities.
*** Reply received from operator on MARS ***
System shutdown in 5 minutes
Re:Interface Hall of Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's some of the better ones:
RealPlayer can't get no respect [attrition.org]
Yes, some people are just this dumb [attrition.org]
Not funny, just amazing [attrition.org]
Next-generation keyboard from Microsoft [attrition.org]
Very Unnerving (Score:3, Funny)
ERROR 29: BAD GUESS
Not exactly what I wanted to hear from my calculator.
'I'm crushing your head!' (Score:4, Funny)
'I'm crushing your head!' error appears after leaving open a pop-up slider
Product: Flash
Platform: All
Versions: 5.0
ID: 15438
Issue
After leaving a slider pop-up open, the user switches to another functio] such as accessing a menu or testing a movie. Flash then behaves unexpectedly. Sometimes an error message appears which states:
"I'm crushing your head!" "Crashing at gPopupDail should be new!. Yes = go to debugger, No = keep running, Cancel = terminate."
At other times the slider may continue to appear independently of the panel.Reason
This error is caused by leaving the a pop-up slider open while attempting to perform another function.
Solution
Click out of the slider area to close the pop-up slider before testing the movie or accessing another menu.
Re:"ERROR: SUCCESS!" (Score:3, Funny)
Does the fax machine run XP Embedded?
Error code found in the wild (Score:3, Funny)
"Error: Wrong Gender, unable to have sex."
meant.
Is Jeeves gay? (Score:4, Funny)
HTTP error 403: file is none of your business
You have a lot of nerve even clicking on this link.
I didn't make this up since I can't do ascii art (Score:5, Funny)
Kernel error [venns.org]
IBM 1130 (Score:3, Funny)
The computer was down for a week due to a parity error when the system was powered up. The IBM tech couldn't figure it out. Eventually somebody looked at a picture of the console in the manual and noticed the Power and Parity Error indicators had been switched. The system was working all along!
Depressed web servers (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sometimes Barney plays on his own (Score:2, Funny)
OS/360 error message... Sort of... (Score:3, Funny)
I know someone who, in college, changed our local instance of OS/360-MVT to that instead of giving the traditional
message, it would say
Adrian
Re:Real Media (Score:5, Funny)
Printer not found (Score:5, Funny)
Compiler error messages (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Keyboard error. (Score:5, Funny)
panic("Cannot initialize video hardware\n");
2.0.38
It comes from very cool Kernel Cookies.
There are more:
printk("??? No FDIV bug? Lucky you...\n");
2.2.16
%
* the interrupt processing routine(s), so if you manage to get "flooded" by
* irq's, start thinking about the "Power off/on" button...
*/
2.2.16
%
pan
2.2.16
%
pan
2.2.16
%
#de
Are you able to smell it? */
2.2.16
%
print
2.2.16
%
panic("
2.2.16
%
* function or the penguins will get angry. */
2.2.16
%
2.2.16
%
die_
2.2.16
%
die_
2.2.16
%
die_
2.2.16
%
* "By your command" or "Activating turbo boost, Michael".
*/
2.2.16
%
pri
2.2.16
%
pani
2.2.16
%
panic("kmem_cach
2.2.16
%
panic("Detected a card I can't drive - whoops\n");
2.2.16
%
panic(
2.2.16
%
panic
2.2.16
%
panic("
2.2.16
%
panic("
2.2.16
%
panic("
2.2.16
%
panic ("Splunge!");
2.2.16
%
panic("
2.2.16
%
panic("
deal with such a beast...");
2.2.16
%
2.2.16
%
panic("CPU too expensive - making holiday in the ANDES!");
2.2.16
%
panic
2.2.16
panic(
2.2.16
%
2.2.16
%
printk(KERN_W
dev->name);
2.4.0-test2
%
* Hash table gook..
*/
2.4.0-test2
%
* function won. Do not mess with it... -DaveM
*/
2.2.16
%
* We used to try various strange things. Let's not.
*/
2.2.16
%
#if 0
2.2.16
%
* For moronic filesystems that do not allow holes in file.
* We may have to extend the file.
*/
2.4.0-test2
%
printk(KERN_WARNIN
number). Enabling \"cruft\" mount option.\n");
2.2.16
%
printk(KERN_W
2.2.16
%
2.0.38
%
2.2.16
%
2.2.16
%
*
* Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up
*/
2.2.16
%
printk("Penguin %d is stuck in the bottle.\n", i);
2.0.38
%
prom_p
2.0.38
%
panic("A
2.0.38
%
panic("bad_user_acc
2.0.38
%
%
* Should be panic but... (Why are BSD people panic obsessed ??)
*/
2.0.38
%
panic("Cannot initialize video hardware\n");
2.0.38
%
printk
2.0.38
%
printk("aut
2.0.38
%
HARDFAIL("Not enough magic.");
2.4.0-test2
%
#ifdef STUPIDLY_TRUST_BROKEN_PCMD_ENA_BIT
2.4.0-test2
%
if (user_specified)
* place. */
2.4.0-test2
%
p
"Self-destruct in 5 seconds. Have a nice day...\n");
2.3.99-pre8
No url for more... I can't find
Not exactly an error message but still funny (Score:3, Funny)
How about this one... (Score:3, Funny)
Out of paper on Drive D:
Hum, sure.
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:5, Funny)
That reminds me of a screenshot I once saw that said:
Not enough memory to display error m
Re:PC Load Letter (Score:1, Funny)
Thank you sir.
Re:A Few Windows Error messages (Score:3, Funny)
Bill Gates: 640K should be enough for anybody.
MS Exec: (cough) actually Bill, 640K isn't really very much memory at all...
Pause...
Bill G: (rubbing chin) Alright then - one meeeellion beeeellion treeeellion bytes should be enough for anybody.
MS Exec: yes Excellency, I shall ensure the changes are executed immediately.
TiVo (Score:5, Funny)
make: stop. don't know how to make love! (Score:5, Funny)
I read a case history that was somewhat similar. Except the error message was in Latin. Someone who had once taken Latin was tracked down, and asked to translate. The translation was something like, "Unto the son is born a brother". When the original programmer was tracked down, he was embarrassed. "But that condition was never supposed to arrive. He had some kind of complicated data structure, where each element could have children and siblings. Except the element at the apex of the tree was supposed to be a special case -- no siblings.
But since it was never supposed to happen the original programmer didn't bother to put a meaningful error message.
Back with good old version 7, make gave error messages like:
make: stop. don't know how to make foo!
if you had typed "make foo" and there was no makefile, or no rule for foo in the makefile.
When computer naive people (remember them) would ask what computers could do, it was fun to have them sit down and type:
make love
Which would, of course, result in:
make: stop. don't know how to make love!
"make war" was another good one.
Re:Insert what to continue? (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine the lawsuit when some newbie takes it literally while running porn software.
Tech support line: "You reformatted your what?"
Best error message ever (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Illegal Operation (Score:4, Funny)
no joke... (Score:2, Funny)
My favorite (Score:2, Funny)
When you write your own errors (Score:5, Funny)
"The printer doesn't work."
"Is there an error? What does it say?"
"It's all the way in the next room."
"Ma'am, I need to know the error."
"It says printer error."
"Could you read me exactly what is says?"
"I remembered. That's what it says. Printer error."
"Ok, ma'am? You're talking to the guy that wrote the software. I know for a fact that it doesn't say printer error, because I never wrote an error message that says printer error. Now please put down the phone, go into the other room, and read me the real message."
*click*
True story.
RedHat 7.1 system (Score:2, Funny)
This popped up in a RedHat 7.1 system while trying to get some QLogic HBA adapters to work.
Amiga: "User Stupidity Error" (Score:3, Funny)
Does anybody remember what the name of the program was?
V7 help command (Score:2, Funny)
"The Lord helps those who help themselves"
A riot those old Bell Labs guys!
Cheers,
Bill
Re:Interface Hall of Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
Error code: NO_ERROR
Kind of reminds me of the "everything's ok" alarm...
Re:Keyboard error. (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot the best (mm/swapfile.c): :-)
Unable to start swapping: out of memory
And this one (arch/i386/boot/setup.S): :-(. Hopefully it works, and we don't :-).
# Well, that certainly wasn't fun
# need no steenking BIOS anyway (except for the initial loading
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:5, Funny)
Windows blorphs on a lot of stuff, actually. Sometimes their copying estimates are a bit off. [shacknet.nu] (Fortunately, it didn't really take that long.)
Sometimes there's an error even when there isn't [shacknet.nu] (or isn't when there is? Whatever)
It's ok though, all of these problems can be taken care of fairly easily with the New Microsoft Keyboard, [shacknet.nu] at a store near you!
Re:$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Score:1, Funny)
They left out this one:
Unfortunately, due to error messages being improved in newer versions of Unix, on newer systems it comes out something like this:
(So if you really want to see it, pull out your old SunOS 4.x machine or whatever...)
PC Loadletter (Score:5, Funny)
That bitch is lucky I'm not armed.
tcsh: bill gates (Score:2, Funny)
It's all about the donuts, baby. (Score:3, Funny)
Setting: A published piece of software, in a moderately obscure error case. The first half of the error message is fabricated (since I don't remember the specifics) but the second half tells volumes about programmers and their motivations:
This feature has not yet been correctly implemented. Bad Programmer. No donut.
Re:Printer on fire (Score:3, Funny)
bool is_computer_on() - Returns true if the computer is turned on; if the computer is off, the result is undefined.
Not to be outdone, another Be engineer added bool is_computer_on_fire()
Silent death (long) (Score:3, Funny)
In the 70's I worked in a college computer center equipped with an RCA Spectra 70 batch-oriented system. I was fixing a problem with one of the line printers (paper stacking) when I got a bad static shock from the printer cabinet, at which point the printer abruptly stopped printing.
I walked over to the operator's console to report the problem, and was interrupted by the console teletype printing a message (paraphrased):
Job 00371 has device LPT1 in silent death
While we were trying to figure that out, the console continued to print out messages every 30 seconds or so:
Job 00358 has device MTA0 in silent death
Job 00364 has device CDR0 in silent death
Job *SYS* has device CPU0 in silent
Re:Actually it's F1 (Score:1, Funny)
Re:"Your system date is set to year 8192. (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhhhhh!
So that's why I'm not getting a response to my zipped messages to the future. I'll try bzip instead...
-Adam
True Story (Score:2, Funny)
MS-DOS's "REN" (Score:3, Funny)
My all-time favorite is the old "ren" error - "Duplicate file name or file not found".
If it's not immediately funny - parse it:
"Duplicate file name" = "The file exists"
"File not Found" = "The file doesn't exist"
So...basically the error message says "the file exists or it doesn't"....
Something wrong! (Score:2, Funny)
Naturally I laughed.
- IP
KMAG YOYO (Score:3, Funny)
First programming job (Score:1, Funny)
The message:
"Shut yer down, Clancy, she's a pumpin' mud!"
heheheh
Re:Gotta be the classic MacOS... (Score:2, Funny)
"Application requested abnormal termination."
Huh? Is that like: "Hey, please terminate me abnormally!"
Re:Gotta be the classic MacOS... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:5, Funny)
TeX (Score:2, Funny)
"Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed"
and all the TeXbook has to say about it is:
"If you have been so devious as to get this
message, you will understand it, and you will
deserve no sympathy"
Favorite Mac Error message (Score:5, Funny)
"How would you like if I erased all your files?" with two buttons both of which said "OK". If you clicked on the button it would say "just kidding" if you clicked anywhere else it would call you a coward.
Kernel 2.0 , my dumb error (Score:2, Funny)
I remember way back in the 2.0.x days , I tried enabling SMP support on a dual P150 machine. This was when doing so entailed editing the makefile by hand.
Well , I apparently did something wrong , because on booting my shiny new SMP enabled kernel I got the error message,
"This should never happen. You must have done something extraordinarily stupid. I suggest you fix it."Oddly enough , that day I considered myself honoured.
IBM never released this... (Score:1, Funny)
Won't find this on a posIT underneath the keyboard (Score:2, Funny)
Who's the genius [microsoft.com] that came up with this one?
Re:Errors covering errors (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, my TA called me out on it when I got the graded result back -- she had taken off three points. I said, fine, if YOU can find the flaw in the rest of my logic, then I will accept that I made a mistake and deserved to be docked three points. She rapidly gave up, and only took off one point instead.
Too many errors on one line. Make fewer. (Score:2, Funny)
VirtualPC inside VirtualPC (Score:5, Funny)
Mainframe message (Score:2, Funny)
firmware IOCDS file:
File is Writed
"Possible hardware or software error" (Score:2, Funny)
I like the 'possible' part. (It could be neither! Quantum physics no doubt involved!)
What's really scary is I understood most of the message that prompted this article...
Garg
Comment removed (Score:2, Funny)
Life's error messages (Score:3, Funny)
Unknown Error in "step 5. Profit!"
Re:Printer on fire (Score:5, Funny)
double is_computer_on_fire()
Returns the temperature of the motherboard if the computer is currently on fire. If the computer isn't on fire, the function returns some other value.
and of course the classic:
int32 is_computer_on(void)
Returns 1 if the computer is on. If the computer isn't on, the value returned by this function is undefined.
(source: [dhs.org]
http://bang.dhs.org/be/bebook/The%20Kernel%20Ki
Those were the days.
Re:Linux errors are the best (Score:4, Funny)
The switch to link against this library was thus -lowfat
Re:Error (Score:1, Funny)
"Document is corrupt. I recommend suicide."
The intent was to remove it after the testers saw it.
I didn't. It shipped. Customer saw it. Got yelled at.
Java (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Keyboard error. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:cute error msg (Score:2, Funny)
>man my_butt
Found in Air Traffic Management Code: (Score:3, Funny)
Right up there with 0xDEADBEEF- RS6000 proc's when the registers aren't initialized.
Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again. (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt you could get that message past the suits these days. If you did, I'm sure Paramount would demand a royalty every time the message appeared (Star Trek franchiise).
"domain error: forces on balls too great" (Score:4, Funny)
attraction: domain error: forces on balls too great
Here is a screenshot [boners.com].
Not that it's exactly on topic, but here are links to a few other pictures [boners.com] of Windows error messages [boners.com] and bluescreens [boners.com] from the same site that I thought were funny.
"Not That Button, You Idiot..." (Score:2, Funny)
I was in one of those intense periods where we needed a clean compile every day. So I would code for a couple of hours, fire off a compile, and then monitor it into the night. Needless to say, after a few days, I was pretty wiped.
Late One evening, deep into the compile, the dreaded hang occurred (you could tell because the cassettes stopped turning). With trembling hand, I reached for the red button to see my fate. I pushed the button (at least I think I pushed the right button).
The console began to print... In my sleep-deprived stupor, I could only stare. Then I hesitantly reached out and pushed the red button again. The machine burped, The cassettes began to turn, I could only watch and wait the remaining hours of the compile to see if I had running code.
And no, I could never reproduce the message! (Note: if anyone cares, this was a Burroughs B-80, compiling Burroughs S-1000 software)
TRS-80 Error (Score:3, Funny)
Error: Unprintable Error
Come on! You can tell me.
Re:Found in Air Traffic Management Code: (Score:2, Funny)
From an old old mainframe program... (Score:1, Funny)
Someone tried to use a variable name that was four letters long...started with an F...ended with a K...I think we all know the word.
And Fang gave the following error message when we tried to run the macro at the line with the foul word. Again, doing this all by memory...
"Yes, Fang knows these words also and you will not be allowed to use them in the program."
All further references to the variable were undefined.
Re:PC Loadletter (Score:4, Funny)
dave
Re:Not funny on its own but (Score:3, Funny)
Re:make: stop. don't know how to make love! (Score:3, Funny)
%man arse
no manual entry for arse
Practical joke.. (Score:3, Funny)
I placed this image in the middleof a copy of a page from our website, then sent a company-wide email exlaining the new update they needed to see. After a few people asked me about the error message (also asking me to order new monitors...), I copied a CNN health page and gave it a few minor alterations. I wrote a fake explanation of a new virus going around called the "Microwave Virus" that overloaded the UV guns in your monitor. This exposure can cause people to feel tired, irritable, and a few other normal things you feel while you're at work. I then renamed my computer to 'www.cnn-news.com' and posted the page using MS Personal Web Server. I sent out a 'Sysadmin Virus Warning' and went to lunch.
When I got back from lunch, a group of my coworkers were trying to figure out if they should go home or if they should see their doctors first. Heh.
They weren't so stunned that I faked the message, but rather that I had faked CNN's site so well. Pity they missed the typo in the error message.
Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo (Score:5, Funny)
Needless to say, I didnt go back to programming for the rest of the day...
NVRAM insanity error (Score:4, Funny)
The next reboot gave us "NVRAM insanity error." Quite descriptive. :-)
Kernel32.dll (Score:2, Funny)
It couldn't be MORE accurate!
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:3, Funny)
Definition is too new for engine!
There was one button to click.
It said "You're Fucked"
Re:Gnarly error messages (Score:3, Funny)
Anyhow, one of it's earlier compilers, Sc and ScPP by Symantec (it precedes the MrC compilers), had some nifty errors. Including my all-time favorite:
##ScPP: Too many errors; make fewer.
Another cool one was:
##ScPP: A type declaration was a total surprise to me at this time.
Re:"Your system date is set to year 8192. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mac Bomb (Score:4, Funny)
Re:someone's in the kitchen (Score:5, Funny)
As the principle software developer on Someone's in the Kitchen (the title helped pay the down payment on my house), I have to say I didn't realize this problem had made it to the published Microsoft Knowledge Base. Of all things...
Though I have to admit, the funniest bug report I ever tracked for that product was a timing error in a
Problem was, the wave file was cut short, and the play back of the audio stopped before the syllable "roach."
Needless to say fixing that problem before GM was slightly more important than the Blendolini Choco-Shake hang.
Compiling umoria on an Apollo (Score:1, Funny)
Subject:Compiler says 'Ack'
Date: 23 Feb 92 09:30:04 GMT
ABSOLUTELY UNCHANGED COMPILER RESPONSES
(from a make of umoria 5.4 on an Apollo...)
[monsoon:umoria] 19} make
cc -O -c main.c
Compiler Errors
99 divide by 0 error: can't find source
033 linker attempting to 'duck tape' this 'gerbil' of a program
more [decepticons.org]
Incorrect password. The correct password is asdfg. (Score:2, Funny)
Weird error messages (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:3, Funny)
Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords
Microsoft Article [microsoft.com]
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:3, Funny)
Illegal error (Score:3, Funny)
Illegal Error: Device returned illegal error code.
Translation is "You bought a third party compatible disk drive and it returned an error code to the OS that wasn't defined".
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:4, Funny)
The code was later running into the tens of thousands of lines so we got into the habit of using the word FUCK in every single error message.
The reason being that it allowed you to get to the error generation code (the parts where ninety percent of your debugging happens) with a simple text search.
We also kept another set of 'proper ' error messages in a sepperate file, complete with a script to replace them in the code automagically, this way our code would have the funny fuck messages, but the code we shipped would not.
Of course there was a bug in our script and it left one in.
So one night, around three in the morning, my phone rings:
'Hello Venter speaking'
'Mr. Venter, this is Sargeant Willis of the Sunnyside Police Station.'
'Uh yeah ?'
'You are listed as the guy to call if we have problems with the computer system ?'
'Yes ? Can you tell me what's wrong ?'
'It says: No you've gone and fucked the whole system you dimwitted moron !'
Needless to say I the next day I went looking for new employment.
Ciao
Re:Keyboard error. (Score:4, Funny)
Help desk call... (Score:2, Funny)
me: "What does it say?"
user: "unable to find pointer device"
me: "I think that means there is a problem with the mouse"
user: "Oh my god! It's been stolen"
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:2, Funny)
TV Console Heaven (Score:2, Funny)
For those not in the know - PA Rocks! [penny-arcade.com]
Error messages that should NOT go out (Score:3, Funny)
Our customer support group received a call one day from someone asking to talk to Bob. The cs rep replied that this was Foo Inc's support line, and gave them the head office number. The customer insisted that this was a legitimate problem with the software.
When the cs rep dug a little deeper, the customer said: "I was running your software, and an error message came up that said 'This should never happen. If it does, call Bob' ".
Sure enough, I grepped the code, and Bob had left that error message in an obscure part of the code.
Phemur
Bill Gates the road (Score:2, Funny)
You get the following error
Installation Problem
Sorry, The Road Ahead does not run on Windows NT. Please install on a computer running Windows 3.10 or greater
Re:Not funny on its own but (Score:3, Funny)
ITYM "again will rise Forth"
Yoda You Like Are If FORTH Understand You Will Then
Best error message ever (Score:3, Funny)
Something really bad happened. See if RMS is in the building.
Since RMS was responsible for much of the system code, this kind of made sense. But it was in a commercial machine! And, yes, it meant *that* RMS.
male lament (Score:1, Funny)
d blow
reponse was
BLOW JOB NOT FOUND
They are rare
You have recieved a General Undefined Error! (Score:2, Funny)
Gnarly Error Messages (Score:1, Funny)
"Error: Non-fatal suicide"
and
"Error: Death in Family"
Re:Apollo workstation (Score:2, Funny)
Another favourite apollo error message was something like "unit will not fit thru 19" hatch". If I recall correctly, it was a dig at Pr1me who'd had a contract with the navy for some kind of computer to go on a submarine. When the device was ready to be installed, they discovered it wouldn't fit through the hatch on the submarine! The founders of apollo were former Pr1me folks.
Microsoft encouriging better password security? (Score:2, Funny)
"Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords"
I have been hounding people who have weak passwords on the network I administer and it's been tough getting people to come up with 8 character passwords!
Win Explorer (Score:3, Funny)
When I tried to drag the Start Menu Dir back to where it belonged I got:
Cannot perform this operation as it is a Rooted Explorer
Amen to that.....
windows data error (Score:2, Funny)
The data could not be "read"
(yes, the quotes are part of the error message)
Good old Windows NT (Score:2, Funny)
"Unable to delete files due to insufficient disk space. Try deleting some files to free up more disk space."
Re:Other humorous error messages (Score:1, Funny)
Actual text from error message: (Score:2, Funny)