Gnarly Error Messages

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."

Re:Keyboard error.

[MagPulse]

Plug the keyboard in and hit F9. It makes sense.

C++ template errors

[bunyip]

Anybody that's used C++ templates a lot would know that compile errors can easily be 10-20 lines long (per error).

I don't remember who said it, but C++ templates are clearly the work of the devil.

C++ Templates

[SuperKendall]

For sheer length, it's hard to beat C++ template errors.

I had a friend at work who hund a nice full page error message hung on his wall as a monument to C++ templates.

Re:How to totally screw up Win2k in less than 1 mi

[Idarubicin]

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and disable all services.

...You gotta love MS's monolithic integration...

Yep. You gotta love people who either a) mess with things they don't understand or b) deliberately try to break things...and then find that they're broken.

Granted, there exists an argument that even when apparently working correctly most MS products are badly broken, but that's for another post...

Re:java servlet/j2EE stack traces Re:C++ Templates

[rfsayre]

see, I usually read those as:

An exception was raised in ThingWrittenByMe called at a bad time from AnotherThingWrittenByMe
bullshit
bullshit
bulls hit
bullshit
bullshit
bullshit ...
bullshit
called by MainThing.run()

Expected vs unexpected errors

[jmorris42]

Of course. If you are saving a file to disk, disk full, write error, write protect, etc are all examples of errors that should be expected and allowances made. Getting a seg fault would be UNexpected and falling back to the apps generic error handler is probably acceptable.

Re:Interface Hall of Shame...

[DunbarTheInept]

I read through those messages and got a distinct dislike for those critiquing the messages. While some messages were in fact quite dumb, others were being chastized for BEING INFORMATIVE! The authors of the site seem to be of the camp that insists all programs be dumbed down so that no technical information is ever conveyed. They even ridiculed a programmer for stating that the program ran out of memory. They seem to prefer that no information be conveyed that might not be understood by the typical user ignorant of programming. I can't disagree more strongly. Which is better?

1. Convey information that would be useful to someone who knew what they were doing, but not to someone unfamiliar with the technology.
2. Convey no information that would be useful to anybody, knowlegeable or not.

The maintainters of that site seemed to prefer the second, and I cannot agree.

Windows Install and Linux Kernel compile.

[merdark]

I remember two funny errors. Once, when installing Windows (or maybe it was dos) on a older computer, after the whole process finished it told me so and told me it was going to restart. So the computer restarted, and prompty asked me "DO YOU WANT TO FORMAT C:?"

I don't know or remember that happened. It must have been some old code laying around on a boot disk or something. But why someone would put a format command in a startup script is beyond me.

The other funny experience I had was another "user error", not an error with the software. The first time me and a freind tried to recompile the linux kernel, we were confronted with a large number of technical questions. This was one of those funky text only configuration scripts that asks you if you want support 'X' and support 'Y' and such.

Well, having never compiled the kernel before, we looked at the possible answers (Y/N/M). "Ok", we thought, "Y is for yes, N is for no... but M? What the hell is M???." So, not knowing that Linux had acquired MODULES since we last used it, we jokingly concluded that M must be for "maybe". And we continued, whenever we weren't sure whether we needed an option or not, we just answered maybe!!

Lucky for us, that was the right thing to do. But I thought it was a funny "user error" at any rate. Probalby a bit off topic here though.

Re:Read BSOD

[cscx]

How would ones microsoft friends feel on that?

Personally, I don't think they'd give a shit as you stated it didn't work. That being said, I think they'd ask you why that mission critical server was not in a redundant load-balanced cluster/farm.

Re:How to totally screw up Win2k in less than 1 mi

[g4dget]

Changing a bunch of configuration settings in a GUI should not be something that's unrecoverable through normal, documented means.

Re:How to totally screw up Win2k in less than 1 mi

[sql*kitten]

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and disable all services.

An easier way to screw up any NT kernel based OS is to set its pagefile smaller than 2M. It'll still run, but it won't be a happy bunny...

Re:Interface Hall of Shame...

[OAB]

Except that 'Out of memory' on its own is no use either. Have you ever tried debugging from a user reported error? 'I hit X and it said something about memory', no message at all would be about as useful.

NT profile copy error

[JohnCub]

The oddest error I ever saw was this one [longwell.net]

For those not interested in the 15k image, it says:

Error: The operation completed successfully.

Re:Error code found in the wild

[Skjellifetti]

All occupations have professional rules of conduct. Rock stars are expected to show up to their concerts on time, not be trashed, and play their hearts out. I have seen Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker so wasted they could hardly stand up, let alone play, leaving a lot of very unhappy fans (i.e. customers) in their wake. Some friends of mine fired their lead singer/guitar a couple of years ago because he was consitently showing up drunk for gigs. If you think those rules are boring, then don't try and be a rock star. But within the scope of those rules, a lot of musicians seem to have a lot of fun.

Bottom line: If you think that the professional rules of conduct in your chosen occupation are boring, then you are either in the wrong profession or too immature to be working in that occupation.