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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."
Press F9 to continue.
Had a Mac program long ago that featured the following error msg:
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
beauty is only a light switch away
i once received the following at work in the proprietary software used for cable tv tech support/etc....
"You need help. Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx for assistance."
"An Error Occurred Because An Error Occurred"
Ah, so that's why!
"Error: No error"
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!"
***
This error is documented in MS's KB:
"Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on his own." Scary.
I've encountered "Error: too many errors" several times before.
---
Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
While doing some JavaScript programming with and old version of Netscape:
Undefined is not definedAppleWorks GS on the Apple IIGS... "A serious system error has occured" and two buttons appeared. The first button said "Reset", and the second button had an arrow pointing to the first button. :)
The fax machine in my office's mailroom displays this to confirm that your outgoing fax was sent. It confused the heck out of me the first time...
I still put those in for giggles.. Usually in something like this:
if ($a > 0){
#something
}elsif($a 0){
#something
}elsif($a = 0){
#something
}else{
die "Error: You shouldn't see this."
};
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
(1) Winerr 00E : Unexplained Error - Please tell us how this happened0 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000c0000240".
(2) 01B - Error Removing Temp File; Kernel.dll Will Be Substituted
(3) 01C - Wrong Disk Formatted. Sorry About That.
(4)Title: setup32.exe - error in application
The instruction "0x77e0a053" points to memory at "0x0f1366b8". The data was not transferred into RAM because of an I/O error in "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That's a lot of zeros... I thought addresses were only 32 bits long in Windows2000...
Rapid Nirvana
I like this far more than is acceptable:
>cat food
>cat: cannot open food
At a DN300's boot prompt I typed:
:)
> ?
You must be from Prime. Use 'h' for help.
Prime was Apollo's competitor at the time.
Hedley
My favorite on the NT servers was a popup explainging that the Dr. Watson process had generated a Dr. Watson error. If the system hadn't frozen I would have screen-capped that bad boy.
Also, twice when using Veritas Backup Exec NT 7.3 I received a warning error messages stating that there were over 1 billion administrators currently connected to the system, so I should be careful making changes. I wasn't aware Backup Exec was so popular.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
"Gnarly Error Messages" make me picture the Dell dude popping up like the M$ Clippy and saying something like "Dude, your program just totally crashed. Bummer!"
"Cannot Start Transaction While in Firehose Mode"
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
[in soothing voice]"Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."
If you think
When installing linux you can get this error:
***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
Service unavailable due to link posted on Slashdot.
I remember I was using an old Amiga disk-doctor type utility, and I got this wonderful error message:
'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!
A friend once got a javascript error that would have made Bill Clinton proud:
'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!
Q325038: Calendar Type May Change to Japanese Emperor Era When Outlook Runs
cpeterso
All IBM MVS error messages end up saying this in the manual:
ERROR: Error on open macro at the address indicated
PROGRAMMER ACTION: Fix and rerun.
No joke.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
____________________________
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
Or how about:
:-D
"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.
And personally I prefer the ones that said "Keyboard not found; press F1 to continue"
RMN
~~~
The MacOS Bomb is analagous to the BSOD on Win9x -- lack of protected memory caused some serious shit to happen. (Funny, the Win9x "BSOD" really isn't the official "Blue Screen of Death" anyway -- it's just a blue error message. The real BSOD originated on WinNT and only occurred when some serious shit happened -- like yanking out expansion cards with the power on, or some nasty corrupted driver.)
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, (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, and you can't forget Linus' famous "Aiee!" message when the Linux kernel panics.
[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.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
The old SWTP microprocessor kits used to output a single * as a prompt. I prety much knew how the day was going to go when I saw one that, the first time it was powered up, type out FU
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The Selecting Blendolini Causes Choco-Banana Shake Hang From the BSOD-on-my-toaster dept issue was a real error in a Microsoft related program, "Someone's in the Kitchen." There used to be a whole technet article describing the crash involving the choco-banana shake recipe, but it was pulled. For reference, check this out: Q157668 Mystery solved.
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.
Back in my VAX/VMS days, the powers that be decided to name the machines after planets. The limit was six characers, so the names were "VENUS", "MARS", and "PLUTO". So far, so good.
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
Here's a kernel dump I got once while creating a software raid. I tried to post it, but the lameness filter keeps stopping me.
Kernel error
No datacenter is secure if it has windows.
this is just funny.
Back in the 80s, we got an Amiga 1000, and my dad was trying to hook up an apple image writer to the serial port. Apparently, the Amiga would dump error messages to the serial port, expecting a terminal to be connected. So at some point, he tries to print something, it doesn't work, the machine trys printing an error message to the serial port. So the printer makes it laborious dot matrix printing noises, and then advances the paper, which says "Printer not found".
If the internal temperature on your TiVo reaches a certain point, you're greated with an image of the TiVo dude in flames, with a message "Your TiVo is on fire! Call 911 now!". http://tivo.samba.org/download/belboz/firegood.jpg .
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.
"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.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Outlook has some great ones. Here it is trying to eliminate itself.
Windows blorphs on a lot of stuff, actually. Sometimes their copying estimates are a bit off. (Fortunately, it didn't really take that long.)
Sometimes there's an error even when there isn't (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, at a store near you!
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
PC Load letter? What the fuck does that mean?
That bitch is lucky I'm not armed.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
My friend got a similar one while trying to run windows 3.1. After typing "win" at the prompt, he was greeted with: "This program requires Microsoft Windows to run."
Ignorance is not linguistic drift.
Well this one is not really an error message. There was a multimedia company that had a promotional floppy (this was before CD's) that had this gag error message pop up on your mac (it's been a while so I might not get the wording exactly right)
"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.
An amusing error I got when trying to run VirtualPC for Windows inside VirtualPC for Mac. Yes, this is real.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
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).
Needless to say, I didnt go back to programming for the rest of the day...