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Thread: Helpful Error Messages

  1. April 5th, 2002, 11:57 PM #1
    Keisha
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    Post Helpful Error Messages

    Now I know the dreaded BSOD that we all know and love so much isn't very helpful, but I think I've managed to find the least helpful error message possible, courtesy of our friends at Microsoft.

    <unknown> has caused an error in <unknown>.
    <unknown> will now close.

    Uhm.. if it can't tell me what the error was, where it was, what caused it, how is it closing it, and how did it even know there was an error in the first place?

    -Keisha
    www.notinourname.net
    www.nion.us

    Read them.
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  2. April 6th, 2002, 12:19 AM #2
    jethro
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    Once I tried to defragment my computer and Windows said "Error: Cannot defragment, deal with it!" give or take a few numbers and random jargon.
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  3. April 6th, 2002, 01:03 AM #3
    Magus255
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    "Error displaying error message"

    didn't really help me much.. but at least it made sense
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  4. April 6th, 2002, 03:16 AM #4
    TechieChick
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    Keisha I've seen that one as well, crazy, eh?
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  5. April 6th, 2002, 03:19 AM #5
    Matty_Cross
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    The best error message that I've seen, was from outlook. It seemed to have grabbed like 5 different error messages, and squished them into the one dialog box....

    -Matty_Cross
    \"Isn\'t sanity just a one trick pony anyway? I mean, all you get is one trick. Rational Thinking.
    But when you\'re good and crazy, hehe, the skies the limit!!\"
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  6. April 6th, 2002, 03:29 AM #6
    [WebCarnage]
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    lol, back in the days when I was young and fooled with backdoors alot. I once got an error message saying:

    Error staying online, Compuserve is Stupid.

    [P.S. - I had Compuserve...]
    ...This Space For Rent.

    -[WebCarnage]
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  7. April 6th, 2002, 06:16 PM #7
    zigar
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    my fav is from coldfusion studio 4.5.1 which was very buggy...

    "There is no error message for this error. Please contact Technical Support with the details of the error message."
    I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and weird." - Abe Simpson
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  8. April 6th, 2002, 08:41 PM #8
    MrLinus
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    Talking

    The best error message I saw was in Event Viewer on an NT box. As some may or may not know, MS has 3 types of errors: Informational (green), warnings (yellow) and severe (red). Severe is generally indicative of serious issues. One day will looking I noticed a red one and went to check it. It said (and I swear this is what it said):


    The command has completed successfully
    Goodbye, Mittens (1992-2008). My pillow will be cold without your purring beside my head
    Extra! Extra! Get your FREE copy of Insight Newsletter||MsMittens' HomePage
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  9. April 6th, 2002, 08:51 PM #9
    ac1dsp3ctrum
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    The best error message I ever recieved (or the worst) said 'Installation Complete, Please restart your computer to finish configuring Windows XP'... Scared the crap out of me

    If you play a Windows XP installation CDROM backwards, you hear
    a message from Satan.
    Even worse... if you play it forwards, it installs Windows XP.
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  10. April 6th, 2002, 09:04 PM #10
    ZeroOne
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    One of the most legendaric ones is the
    "Cannot delete 016: There's not enough free disk space
    Delete one or more files to free disk space, then try again."
    ( http://www.shybe.com/Bugs/Errors/ )

    Have you noticed how when starting an installation program it might ask you "Do you wish to
    install DirectX 8.1?" (or what ever you are installing). Shouldn't it be "Do you WANT to install DirectX 8.1? "? Wishing is mostly something that won't become true...

    And check http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/error/ , it's a book about developing good error messages!

    -ZeroOne
    Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
    A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25
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