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Gnarly Error Messages

Posted by michael on from the abnormal-termination dept.

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."

8 of 1,218 comments (clear)

  1. From the Linux kernel ... by owlorc · · Score: 0, Redundant

    printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);

  2. This was one of my favorites by Clue4All · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Jun 25 12:20:47 ladyluck kernel: lp0 on fire

    --

    Is your browser retarded?
  3. WTF? by xenoweeno · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Software Failure. Press left mouse button to continue.

    Guru Meditation #00000025.65045338

  4. Sun Blade 150 after installing Debian: by Sivar · · Score: 2, Redundant

    Error: I have no root and I must scream.

    (Couldn't find the hard drive)

    --
    Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
  5. Re:Dr. Watson caused a Dr. Watson by zulux · · Score: 1, Redundant

    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

    Hey, what your ip? That's a great warez server you got there!

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  6. Gotta light?, make love, and bad magic number by Charles+Dodgeson · · Score: 2, Redundant
    On older versious of csh, the error message to

    gotta light?

    was pretty good. (It was "No match").

    Also earlier Unix make, (not GNU make) had a nice error response to make love. ("don't know how to make love. Stop.")

    One of my favorites, as a complete newbie in 1979, was probagly the consequence of typing ld in place of ls in some long forg The result was "bad magic number". That truly had me baffled.

    --
    Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
  7. Re:Actually it's F1 by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 1, Redundant

    No, you see, the stupid part isn't the refusal to continue. The stupid part is the request to press F1. Think about it. Press F1 on *what*? (Keep in mind that often when this message appeared, it was too late to plug in the keyboard at that point - it woudln't be recognized without a reboot.)

    --

    Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

  8. You don't exist by xmda · · Score: 0, Redundant

    A friend of mine got this error message:

    "You don't exist.Go away!"

    A picture can be found here:

    http://mathias.dahl.net/dat/gfx/jpg/hemsida/you_ do _not_exist.jpg