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."

Comments

Mac Bomb

[httpamphibio.us]

The random bomb that used to pop up using Mac LC's... not explanation, just BOMB. That used to freak some people out.

Re:Mac Bomb

[cscx]

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.

Re:Mac Bomb

[Anonymous DWord]

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!

Re:Mac Bomb

[TheCrackRat]

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."

Re:Mac Bomb

[Tet]

My favourite Windows related one was so good, I took a screenshot to preserve it for posterity. This was using a Citrix-like multi-user NT system from my Sparc.

Keyboard error.

[Trusty Penfold]

Press F9 to continue.

Re:Keyboard error.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently there's also a "Display error; hit F1 to
continue" message, but I've never seen it.

Re:Keyboard error.

[zdzichu]

Maybe something like this: /* Nobody will ever see this message :-) */
panic("Cannot initialize video hardware\n");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/m68k/atari/atafb.c

It comes from very cool Kernel Cookies.
There are more:

printk("??? No FDIV bug? Lucky you...\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/bugs.h
% /* These are the most dangerous and useful defines. They do printk() during
* 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 /usr/src/linux/drivers/sbus/char/aurora.h
%
pani c("floppy: Port bolixed.");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/include/asm-sparc/floppy.h
%
pani c("sun_82072_fd_inb: How did I get here?");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/include/asm-sparc/floppy.h
%
#def ine BB_STAT2_TMP_INTR 0x10 /* My Penguins are burning.
Are you able to smell it? */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/include/asm-sparc/obio.h
%
printk (KERN_ERR "msp3400: chip reset failed, penguin on i2c bus?\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/msp3400.c
%
panic("e sp_handle: current_SC == penguin within interrupt!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/esp.c
% /* Host controller interrupts must not be running while calling this
* function or the penguins will get angry. */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/usb/ohci.c
% /* Identify the flock of penguins. */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/alpha/kernel/setup.c
%
die_i f_kernel("Whee... Hello Mr. Penguin", current->tss.kregs);
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/traps.c
%
die_i f_kernel("Penguin instruction from Penguin mode??!?!", regs);
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/traps.c
%
die_i f_kernel("Kernel gets FloatingPenguinUnit disabled trap", regs);
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/traps.c
% /* When we have more time, we can teach the penguin to say
* "By your command" or "Activating turbo boost, Michael".
*/
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/prom/sun4prom.c
%
prin tk("Entering UltraSMPenguin Mode...\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/smp.c
%
panic ("Attempted to kill the idle task!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/kernel/exit.c
%
panic("kmem_cache _init(): Offsets are wrong - I've been messed with!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/mm/slab.c
%
panic("Detected a card I can't drive - whoops\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/daynaport.c
%
panic(" mother...");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/cpqarray.c
%
panic( "Foooooooood fight!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/aha1542.c
%
panic("U nable to find empty mailbox for aha1542.\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/aha1542.c
%
panic("a ha1740.c"); /* Goodbye */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/aha1740.c
%
panic("e sp: what could it be... I wonder...");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/esp.c
%
panic ("Splunge!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/psi240i.c
%
panic("h uh?\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/kernel/smp.c
%
panic("T ell me what a watchpoint trap is, and I'll then
deal with such a beast...");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/arch/sparc/kernel/traps.c
%
panic("Oh boy, that early out of memory?");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/mips/mm/init.c
%
panic("CPU too expensive - making holiday in the ANDES!");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/mips/kernel/traps.c
%
panic( "IRQ, you lose...");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/mips/sgi/kernel/indy%
panic(" Lucy in the sky....");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc64/kernel/starfire.c
%
printk("Illegal format on cdrom. Pester manufacturer.\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/isofs/inode.c
%
printk(KERN_WA RNING "%s: Short circuit detected on the lobe\n",
dev->name);
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/tokenring/lanstreamer.c
% /*
* Hash table gook..
*/
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c
% /* After several hours of tedious analysis, the following hash
* function won. Do not mess with it... -DaveM
*/
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c
% /*
* We used to try various strange things. Let's not.
*/
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c
%
#if 0
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c
% /*
* For moronic filesystems that do not allow holes in file.
* We may have to extend the file.
*/
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c
%
printk(KERN_WARNING "Warning: defective CD-ROM (volume sequence
number). Enabling \"cruft\" mount option.\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/isofs/inode.c
%
printk(KERN_WA RNING "Multi-volume CD somehow got mounted.\n");
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/fs/isofs/inode.c
% /* Fuck me gently with a chainsaw... */
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/ptrace.c
% /* Binary compatibility is good American knowhow fuckin' up. */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/sunos_ioctl.c
% /* Am I fucking pedantic or what? */
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/qlogicpti.h
% /* vsprintf.c -- Lars Wirzenius & Linus Torvalds. */
*
* Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up :-)
*/
2.2.16 /usr/src/linux/lib/vsprintf.c
%
printk("Penguin %d is stuck in the bottle.\n", i);
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/kernel/smp.c
%
prom_pr intf("Detected PenguinPages, getting out of here.\n");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/sparc/mm/srmmu.c
%
panic("Aa rggh: attempting to free lock with active wait queue - shoot Andy");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/fs/locks.c
%
panic("bad_user_acce ss_length executed (not cool, dude)");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/kernel/panic.c
%
% /*
* Should be panic but... (Why are BSD people panic obsessed ??)
*/
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/net/ipv4/ip_fw.c
% /* Nobody will ever see this message :-) */
panic("Cannot initialize video hardware\n");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/arch/m68k/atari/atafb.c
%
printk( "ufs_read_super: fucking Sun blows me\n");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/fs/ufs/ufs_super.c
%
printk("auto fs: Out of inode numbers -- what the heck did you do??\n");
2.0.38 /usr/src/linux/fs/autofs/root.c
%
HARDFAIL("Not enough magic.");
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/nbd.c
%
#ifdef STUPIDLY_TRUST_BROKEN_PCMD_ENA_BIT
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/drivers/ide/cmd640.c
%
if (user_specified) /* Didn't work, but the user is convinced this is the
* place. */
2.4.0-test2 /usr/src/linux/drivers/parport/parport_pc.c
%
pr intk("VFS: Busy inodes after unmount. "
"Self-destruct in 5 seconds. Have a nice day...\n");
2.3.99-pre8 /usr/src/linux/fs/super.c

No url for more... I can't find :(

Re:Keyboard error.

[kasperd]

You forgot the best (mm/swapfile.c):
Unable to start swapping: out of memory :-)

And this one (arch/i386/boot/setup.S):
# Well, that certainly wasn't fun :-(. Hopefully it works, and we don't
# need no steenking BIOS anyway (except for the initial loading :-).

Re:Keyboard error.

[smartfart]

Usually, there is an option to fix this in the bios. Normally it's on the first bios setup screen, labelled "Halt on: (list of options)" or somesuch. Tell it to keep keep silent on boot errors, and you can probably yank that keyboard.

Re:Keyboard error.

[delta407]

My personal favorite, from my current kernel source tree:

drivers/char/lp.c:257: printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);

Apparently some printers fill the log files with this when they run out of ink. I hear it's pretty effective at getting people to examine their printer.

Re:Keyboard error.

[barracg8]

One of my favourites is linux kernel one, though it may not count as an error message. Linux had frozen while booting, the last line on the screen simple read:

• Testing halt instruction

I guess it worked :-)

Error

[_Spirit]

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

Printer on fire

[Anonymous Coward]

me@machine:/usr/src/linux/drivers/char% grep "on fire" *.c

lp.c: /* not offline or out of paper. on fire? */
lp.c: printk(KERN_ERR "lp%d reported invalid error status (on fire, eh?)\n", minor);
lp_m68k.c: printk(KERN_NOTICE "lp%d: on fire\n",dev);
lp_m68k.c: /* not offline or out of paper. on fire? */
lp_m68k.c: printk(KERN_NOTICE "lp%d: on fire\n",dev);

Re:Printer on fire

[iabervon]

Reportedly, that error message is traditional, and used to be accurate. You'd get that if the printer had jammed in such a way that there was paper pressed on one side against a spinning part, generating heat and paper dust. By the time you got to the printer, it would probably have burst into flames. Of course, the printer could have broken in a less catastrophic way, but people don't tend to complain when their computer tells them their huge printer is on fire and it turns out it's merely broken. These days, of course, printers rarely burst into flames, but if there's something mysteriously wrong with the printer that's not one of the standard problems, who knows? (The message tends to come up if the kernel doesn't understand the printer status quite right)

See this linux kernel post.

Re:Printer on fire

[Flaxter]

According to my copy of the BeBook it was actually:
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:
http://bang.dhs.org/be/bebook/The%20Kernel%20Kit /S ystem.html)

Those were the days.

error message

[sheol]

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."

Amiga Error

[Haxx]

Remember the Amiga 500/1500 error message that said

"Guru Medatation"

Re:Amiga Error

[ewhac]

Everyone likes to malign the Amiga system crash dialog, simply because it bore the term 'Guru Meditation'. "Ha ha," they joke, "see how primitive and useless the error message was."

You have to understand that this was a massive advance forward. Prior to that, the major systems were first-generation Macs (which displayed a certain number of bomb icons and nothing else); and Apple ]['s, Commodore-64s, and MS-DOS-running PC clones -- all of which displayed nothing; it just (if you were lucky) silently locked up.

Carl Sassenrath, designer and author of the Amiga's 'kernel', thought this state of affairs sucked, so he did something about it. Amiga's Guru Meditations, cryptic though they were, told the programmer which task was responsible for the crash (first hex number), and what exception it generated (second hex number). You could then hit the right mouse button to drop into a very primitive serial debugger to get more information. While these numbers were useless to 95% of the users out there, it was information the user could give to the vendor, helping them track down the problem more easily -- information they never had before.

Meanwhile, everyone just happily tolerated Windoze BSODs, even though they were, and still are, no more informative than Amiga Guru Meditations.

Schwab

Gotta be the classic MacOS...

[Greebz]

"An Error Occurred Because An Error Occurred"

Ah, so that's why!

The best BeOS error

[eexlebots]

"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!"

"Your system date is set to year 8192.

[nusuth]

This version of Winzip does not work after year 2099."

Re:"Your system date is set to year 8192.

[blincoln]

Dang, I just tried to replicate this error for a funny screenshot, and apparently XP "does not work after year 2099" either, since it rolls back to 1980 instead of 2100. Maybe if I set it in the BIOS...

Re:"Your system date is set to year 8192.

[anthony_dipierro]

I guess that's one way to make sure copyrights never expire.

Sometimes Barney plays on his own

[hklingon]

This error is documented in MS's KB:
"Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on his own." Scary.

Illegal Operation

[stephenisu]

Working in Technical support for a government website frequented by technophobes with college aged children, I can't count the times I have had people scared to death because their computer had encountered an illegal operation. One woman started yelling at her kids for putting that &#*!ing nappy (napster I am guessing) thing on their machine. It took me 15 minutes to explain the situation to her.. after the 10 minutes of telling her to calm down.. at least she wasn't one of the criers.

Re:Illegal Operation

[Dexx]

I work tech support now. Dont' get any of those, but one of our production systems threw this at me the other day:
"System Error: You need to contact technical support."

Unfortunately, the guy in the next cube over wasn't much help...

Re:Illegal Operation

[Jucius Maximus]

"Working in Technical support for a government website frequented by technophobes with college aged children, I can't count the times I have had people scared to death because their computer had encountered an illegal operation."

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.

Re:Illegal Operation

[spudnic]

As a Systems Administrator, I must concur that the most annoying error messages are the ones that tell me to "Consult your Systems Administrator".

Gnarly error messages

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I've encountered "Error: too many errors" several times before.

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense

[Mwongozi]

no sense in pretending

Undefined?

[stu_coates]

While doing some JavaScript programming with and old version of Netscape:

Undefined is not defined

AppleWorks GS

[axneck]

AppleWorks 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. :)

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.

"ERROR: SUCCESS!"

[davemarmaros]

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...

My favorite windows error:

[hklingon]

My favorite Windows Error.

Though now on NT/2000 these errors are logged in the handy-dany event logger.

Apple's MPW C compiler famous for its error msgs

[Cerlyn]

Apple once put out a C compiler famous for its error messages. Who else would make a compiler that states "This label is the target of a goto from outside of the block containing this label AND this block has an automatic variable with an initializer AND your window wasn't wide enough to read this whole error message"?

Searching for Apple compiler error messages on Google picks up dozens of sites with the error messages from this compiler, as well as spreads out the slashdot effect.

Doing a search for Eudora humor error messages on Google shows Eudora to have a similar sense of humor as well ("Memory is tight-Live Dangerously").

Oooooops.

[cosyne]

Or something to that effect. It was a few years ago, so probably MacOS8. Just the standard error box with no explaination besides "Oooooops"

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

[JWSmythe]

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."
};

A Few Windows Error messages

[cOdEgUru]

(1) Winerr 00E : Unexplained Error - Please tell us how this happened
(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 "0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000c0000240".
That's a lot of zeros... I thought addresses were only 32 bits long in Windows2000...

cute error msg

[jennygerbi]

I like this far more than is acceptable:

>cat food
>cat: cannot open food

Apollo workstation

[hedley]

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

Dr. Watson caused a Dr. Watson

[borwells]

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.

Could the Dell dude do gnarly error messages?

[Rai]

"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!"

How to totally screw up Win2k in less than 1 min.

[eggstasy]

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and disable all services. At no time does Win2k give you a warning that this might be dangerous, but upon rebooting your system will be totally and irrecoverably screwed, as Win2k will tell you that you need the plug and play service to enable any service that you try to enable, INCLUDING the PnP service itself! Reinstalling restored the services to their settings, but it was still not working very well for reasons I cannot understand, so I had to do a clean install to a separate directory!
You gotta love MS's monolithic integration...

My Favorite SQL Error Message

[Ikari Gendou]

"Cannot Start Transaction While in Firehose Mode"

SGI message - has anybody else had this?

[fantomas]

First time my boss went away and left me in charge of everything, our baby, the SGI Indigo2 ( this was a few years ago) decided to die big style. I am not a full blooded geek so scuse me if I don't describe this right, but...

...screen filled with text, went up the screen rapidly filling the whole thing, I think it was like when you start up and all the boot stuff goes past. Finally the screen flashes then does a sort of blue screen of death and the only text on the screen in the top left is DON'T PANIC.

I swear I saw this, if I hadn't seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it, but there I am, the boss is away for the first time on holiday and the computer is saying 'DON'T PANIC' . I knew things were very, very bad.

Can somebody tell me about this error message, how SGI got to put it on their machines, and why?

(end note is boss was cool as ever and the engineers fixed it and we got our data back, but boy, was I afraid to touch that machine again...)

Re:SGI message - has anybody else had this?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I hate to ruin a perfectly good story, but what you saw was probably "DOUBLE PANIC."

If an SGI box kernel panics, it does exactly what you described, printing the message "KERNEL PANIC" at the top of the textport and spewing out lots of stack traces after it.

Now, kernel panics are, of course, handled by a handler. (Those panic messages don't happen by magic, you know.) If, on the off chance, your machine should panic, and then panic again inside the panic handler-- apart from meaning something is really, really wrong-- the system prints the message "DOUBLE PANIC" on the screen.

That's probably what you saw. I've seen this many times-- always due to faulty hardware.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past SGI to put a joke in their panic messages. This is, of course, the company that warned users in its workstation owner's guide not to "dangle the mouse by its cable or throw mouse at co-workers."

And there's always the ever-popular audiopanel -spinaltap gag. Running audiopanel with the -spinaltap flag makes the VU meters go to 11. Naturally.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

HAL9000

[lateralus_1024]

[in soothing voice]"Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

linux

[Kallahar]

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

HTTP 503.1

[utahjazz]

Service unavailable due to link posted on Slashdot.

Errors covering errors

[Ektanoor]

Many years ago, one of my colleagues fell into a weird situation. He was quite good in Assembler and wrote some quite long program. When he finished, he said that he doubts that the program could work. "I should have done some checks before finishing it..." He compiles the program, gets ready for some long debugging and... the program works... He stares at the screen.
"Something is wrong here..."
"What?" I ask.
"The program works...".
"Well it should doesn't it?".
"No, it shouldn't, no one can write Assembler in such volume and avoid errors..."
"But does the program give the right result?"
"Yes, but that's impossible! I nearly guessed how to do it. How can it work?.."

So he starts checking the program. Finds nothing. Debugs it, all seems to work. Then he starts to doubt that the results are correct. So he makes two three checks by hand. Then he writes a small segment of the program and things go nuts.He gets back to the whole program and starts debugging it, step by step. In the end, and after taking four times more what took him to create the program, he approaches me with some clear relief.

"There were errors..."
"So the result was wrong..."
"No, the result was absolutely right!"
"!?!"
"Well, the fact is that I did one offset wrong but in other section of the program, another error in made returned the values to normal. That's why the program worked fine..."

How many such programs exist?

My Best Ever

[coene]

Is when Windows Media Player 6 (before all the gooey interface stuff) gave me an:

Error #112233:
Catastrophic Failure

And then it continued to play the Divx movie fine....

Great old Amiga error message...

[nathanis]

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!

Other humorous error messages

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Other humorous error messages

[Jucius Maximus]

From the MS Office Clippy:

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:Other humorous error messages

[Tablizer]

Error 23 occured when attempting to report that error 23 occured.

That reminds me of a screenshot I once saw that said:

Not enough memory to display error m

Re:Other humorous error messages

[datadictator]

About three years ago I was working with the imutable Wolf Kotze on a criminal database for the South-African police. It was a SCO/NT/Linux based program with an SQL backend.
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

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q325038

[cpeterso]

Q325038: Calendar Type May Change to Japanese Emperor Era When Outlook Runs

All MVS error messages

[tkrotchko]

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.

Thanks for reminding me

[sh0rtie]

____________________________
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

Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo

[wirelessbuzzers]

elsif($a 0)

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

[davidmccabe]

Or how about:

"You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler." :-D

Oh for the days when Apple had a since of humor.

Actually it's F1

[Rui del-Negro]

And personally I prefer the ones that said "Keyboard not found; press F1 to continue"

RMN
~~~

ResEdit and Mac OS X

[Triv]

It's really really easy to change your error messages in a pre-OSX Mac system. When I was in 8th grade I got a good shot in at my music teacher. I booted up our studio computer, fired up ResEdit and changed a resourse or three. So instead of "Please re-insert disk" he saw "Hey! I was eating that!" Instead of the standard Error type-11 messages (application crashed - out of memory - restart) he got "what did you do that for? - (poke again)" and the restart / shutdown dialogue was replaced with "play God." - restart, Shut Down and Cancel turned into Resurrect, Eternal Damnation and Have Mercy. :)

Good times.

triv

My first unix error...

[ChrisKnight]

The year was 1989, and I was installing Interactive 386/ix (AT&T licensed UNIX) on a pc. At some point in working on the box I got the error "bad magik". I have loved unix and unix-like operating systems ever since. DOS was always boring.

-Chris

Funky error message

[hwestiii]

My favorite error message (not really an error, more informational) came from a driver for a Cannon office printer (floor model copy machine + printer + fax) when requesting a size for a margin. The message stated "Enter an integer between 0 and 1.2"

The Dreaded /. Error Message:

[Devil's BSD]

My most interesting error messages go something like this.

[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.

SWTP prompt

[frovingslosh]

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

someone's in the kitchen

[Jucius Maximus]

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.

Re:someone's in the kitchen

[w3woody]

OH, MY, GOD!

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 .wav file that got integrated into the Kitchen product. At one point, the 'Fridge says "Eeeek! A cockroach!."

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.

Messages from other planets

[dcavanaugh]

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

'I'm crushing your head!'

[Anml4ixoye]

My favorite from Macromedia:

'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.

Is Jeeves gay?

[wirelessbuzzers]

It's the "Jovial" one right now, but for a while it gave an error:

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

[Kernel Panic]

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

Depressed web servers

[skinfitz]

Probably an old one but it would appear relevant.

Re:Real Media

[quasar0]

this is just funny.

Printer not found

[cosyne]

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".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

TiVo

[subuni]

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 .

make: stop. don't know how to make love!

[geoswan]

...that featured the following error msg:

I must remember to put an error message here

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: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...

Values of beta will give rise to dom!

[BitwizeGHC]

This story from Dennis Ritchie tells of an error message in old versions of Unix that was actually sort of a Bell Labs version of "All your base".

From personal experience, one that sticks out in my mind is from Microsoft's Flight Simulator. If you auger into the ground, it says "Crash". If you bellyflop into Lake Michigan it says "Splash". But if you make a perfect landing, forgetting the minor detail of putting down your landing gear, it'd say "Crash! Lower your gear next time!" This message dates all the way back to MFS 1.0.

When you write your own errors

[dmorin]

"Tech support."
"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.

PC Loadletter

[jabbo]

PC Load letter? What the fuck does that mean?

That bitch is lucky I'm not armed.

Re:PC Loadletter

[odaiwai]

It means: "We here at $PRINTER_CORP really hate you goddamn limeys or you smelly Europeans with your different paper sizes and we're going to damn well specify an American paper size by default in every single application and printer we sell, so that you have to go hunt them all out and change them individually!"

dave

Favorite Mac Error message

[overunderunderdone]

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.

VirtualPC inside VirtualPC

[Phroggy]

An amusing error I got when trying to run VirtualPC for Windows inside VirtualPC for Mac. Yes, this is real.

Re:Linux errors are the best

[0x0d0a]

There's a lightweight library designed for very small programs called owfat.

The switch to link against this library was thus -lowfat

Re:Turn the computer off

[itwerx]

Totally OT but here's the deal on that:

- most newer PS/2 keyboards can be hot plugged with no problem
- most older (AT-style) keyboards with a PS/2 adaptor will cause damage
- the damage is actually caused by a filter capacitor in the keyboard drawing too much juice initially for the poor little fuse on the PS/2 port to handle. If you look at any mbd with PS/2 ports (and you know what a surface mount fuse looks like) you'll see one each for the mouse and keyboard
- newer keyboards (anything made in the last 4 or 5 years) are better designed and have smaller filter capacitors, hence less risk (if any) of blowing the fuse
- if you do blow the fuse you can just bridge it with a carefully bent paperclip or a bit of careful soldering; I've never seen any other part of the circuit take any damage after bridging, even with repeated hot-plugs of the keyboard (or mouse) which toasted the fuse originally
But yeah, hot-plugging anything that isn't actually designed for it is kind of asking for trouble.

Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again.

[Ldir]

True story, this message was in Tandy Xenix c. 1982 or so. The Tandy 16/6000 ran Xenix (UNIX System III with a lot of the BSD enhancements) on a Motorola 68000, but used a Z80 subsystem for I/O processing, including the console. This message was generated on the console by the Z80 subsystem. I don't remember exactly what caused it - it was really rare - but it basically meant the system was thoroughly hosed. You could see the message in the "z80ctl" binary if you knew where to look.

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"

[MillionthMonkey]

Gdk-ERROR **: Fatal IO error 9 (Bad file descriptor) on X server :0.0.
attraction: domain error: forces on balls too great

Here is a screenshot.

Not that it's exactly on topic, but here are links to a few other pictures of Windows error messages and bluescreens from the same site that I thought were funny.

Re:Error,Cannot Close Application, Click OK to clo

[ReverendRyan]

I was programming back in the Good 'ol Days, and one of those ACTUALLY HAPPENED! I was programming in QBX under PC-DOS 7.0, and nothing was working right... so i suck in a statement similar to the following, and it executed!:

if 1=2 then print "OOPS!"

Needless to say, I didnt go back to programming for the rest of the day...

NVRAM insanity error

[jimfrost]

My favorite error message came out of an AT&T 3b2 running SysV.2 or maybe V.3. We were trying to break into it because the root password had been forgotten and unfortunately you needed a hardware password to boot it single user ... and of course someone had changed that from the default and nobody knew it, either. We got the bright idea of disconnecting the battery to reset the machine to hardware defaults.

The next reboot gave us "NVRAM insanity error." Quite descriptive. :-)

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.

silly

[rve]

Heh, 1000 comments so noone is going to read this.

The BBC micro's response to trying to renumber a BASIC source with steps of 0:

Silly.