6 ms·

What is a hard error, and what makes it harder than an easy error?

82 points by luu 3y ago

lnxg33k1 3y ago
Guess it’s the same difference between caught exceptions and panics, you can either recover or you cannot?
- op00to 3y ago
  No, a hard error in this case is one that is triggered by a hardware interrupt and is not interruptible by the system. This is explained in the article.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- moritonal 3y ago
  Fun fact, your question was 7% the length of the article which clearly answered your question.
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    What were the odds of that happening?:0
- asveikau 3y ago
  It can be kind of hard to route an error that happens deep inside a kernel to an application. Disk errors happening after a deferred write are a classic example that's still applicable today. Your process might have succeeded a write(2) into cache and exited cleanly, then when it's time to write to disk, something bad happens. There's no way to tell an application that is long gone.
  - becurious 3y ago
    But you would use unbuffered writes if you really cared. Otherwise there’s nothing actionable that can be done by the application unless there was some kind of signal or callback / APC.
    - asveikau 3y ago
      All correct. You're making my same points. I'm illustrating a real world scenario where such a mapping may not be possible. Further, if the issue is a global problem, like filesystem corruption, it becomes even more ambiguous -- maybe that write could have worked or maybe it wouldn't, but the filesystem may just globally make everything read only and start failing writes. So my point is that these errors were meant for catastrophic failures that don't map neatly into being handled with the process. In a modern kernel there are way fewer of these conditions than was acceptable in the early 90s. But there are a few similar things that are still common.
nextaccountic 3y ago
isn't the opposite of a hard error called a "soft error"?
- deathanatos 3y ago
  According to Chen, > The opposite of the “hard error” message was the “soft error” message, which was your regular MessageBox. I think it was just an opening hook thing.
formerly_proven 3y ago
I guess the NT equivalent are those error popups that come out of SYSTEM and similar accounts, yet somehow manage to get on the interactive user's session display. They usually have styling that's several Windows versions out of date.
janci 3y ago
Interesting they were actual graphical dialogs with bouse support in 16-bit windows, but you'd get a text-mode blue screen on Win95. Happened a lot to me due to faulty CD-ROM drive. D: can not be read. Abort/retry/fail. What was even the difference between Abort and Fail?
- ronsor 3y ago
  Abort terminates the application. Fail returns an error code.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deathanatos 3y ago
  > What was even the difference between Abort and Fail? A whole generation of computer users has wondered this. According to Wikipedia[1], "abort" aborted the program (terminated it), and "fail" returned an error code to the program. (Which … probably has a high likelihood of killing it all the same, since a given random I/O is probably pretty non-optional.) Wikipedia also notes, > the message has been cited as an example of poor usability in computer user interfaces. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F
  - epcoa 3y ago
    In DOS the infamous Abort, Retry, (Ignore), Fail was the default handling of "critical errors". Abort would terminate immediately, and fail would return control to the program with an error code. You could override this however: https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/DOS/ch19/CH19-2.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs...
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    Ahhh. I remember as a kid playing some game and sometimes this would come up. We learned that Fail would allow the game to keep running but the background for the scene simply didn’t appear (I guess that I/O was optional).
kens 3y ago
The original definitions of "hard error" and "soft error" were for disks and go back to the early 1970s at least. A soft error was a recoverable error that could be handled by re-reading the disk sector. A hard error was a permanent disk error that could not be recovered.
- seeknotfind 3y ago
  Checks out: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hard+error%2Csoft+error&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hard+error%2Cs...
- favorited 3y ago
  Seems in line with how Windows was using them: > These messages were special because they were generated from inside the I/O system
mike_hock 3y ago
[Abort] [Retry] [Cancel] What's the difference between abort and cancel?
- dataflow 3y ago
  Isn't it Ignore and not Cancel? Where did you actually see this?
  - mike_hock 3y ago
    > Where did you actually see this uhh ...
    - dataflow 3y ago
      My comment was too hasty (sorry) but my point was that you seemed to be asking about the behavior of something that doesn't actually exist, and in fact might never have. (?) I'm not sure where Raymond got it from, or he was just doing this from memory, but Googling around, I don't see an Abort button here: https://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/1261286563.or.360017.png https://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/1261286563.or.360017... All the 3-button versions of the dialog I recall are Abort/Retry/Ignore, not Cancel. So it's kind of hard to answer "what does Cancel do"!
      - mike_hock 3y ago
        He was probably doing it from memory then since the dialog box is made in HTML (it's not a screenshot).
  - NoPicklez 3y ago
    Depends which OS, Windows would often use Cancel in place of Ignore
    - dataflow 3y ago
      I have a hard time believing this considering the flag for it in Windows is called MB_ABORTRETRYIGNORE. How old of a Windows version are we talking? Are you sure you've seen this in actual Windows and not in an altered/joke screenshot?
BangbokAsin 3y ago
[flagged]
sedatk 3y ago
Such errors were called "critical errors" on DOS. They were called critical because the app could not continue execution unless the error was resolved. Windows seems to have picked a softer name.
I_am_uncreative 3y ago
“‘Abort, Retry, Fail?’ was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we’d remind them: if you see this message, always choose ‘Retry.'” — Bad’l Ron, Wakener, Morgan Polysoft (SMAC)

82 points by luu 3y ago

lnxg33k1 3y ago

Guess it’s the same difference between caught exceptions and panics, you can either recover or you cannot?

op00to 3y ago
No, a hard error in this case is one that is triggered by a hardware interrupt and is not interruptible by the system. This is explained in the article.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
moritonal 3y ago
Fun fact, your question was 7% the length of the article which clearly answered your question.
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  What were the odds of that happening?:0
asveikau 3y ago
It can be kind of hard to route an error that happens deep inside a kernel to an application. Disk errors happening after a deferred write are a classic example that's still applicable today. Your process might have succeeded a write(2) into cache and exited cleanly, then when it's time to write to disk, something bad happens. There's no way to tell an application that is long gone.
- becurious 3y ago
  But you would use unbuffered writes if you really cared. Otherwise there’s nothing actionable that can be done by the application unless there was some kind of signal or callback / APC.
  - asveikau 3y ago
    All correct. You're making my same points. I'm illustrating a real world scenario where such a mapping may not be possible. Further, if the issue is a global problem, like filesystem corruption, it becomes even more ambiguous -- maybe that write could have worked or maybe it wouldn't, but the filesystem may just globally make everything read only and start failing writes. So my point is that these errors were meant for catastrophic failures that don't map neatly into being handled with the process. In a modern kernel there are way fewer of these conditions than was acceptable in the early 90s. But there are a few similar things that are still common.

nextaccountic 3y ago

isn't the opposite of a hard error called a "soft error"?

deathanatos 3y ago
According to Chen, > The opposite of the “hard error” message was the “soft error” message, which was your regular MessageBox. I think it was just an opening hook thing.

formerly_proven 3y ago

I guess the NT equivalent are those error popups that come out of SYSTEM and similar accounts, yet somehow manage to get on the interactive user's session display. They usually have styling that's several Windows versions out of date.

janci 3y ago

Interesting they were actual graphical dialogs with bouse support in 16-bit windows, but you'd get a text-mode blue screen on Win95. Happened a lot to me due to faulty CD-ROM drive. D: can not be read. Abort/retry/fail. What was even the difference between Abort and Fail?

ronsor 3y ago
Abort terminates the application. Fail returns an error code.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deathanatos 3y ago
> What was even the difference between Abort and Fail? A whole generation of computer users has wondered this. According to Wikipedia[1], "abort" aborted the program (terminated it), and "fail" returned an error code to the program. (Which … probably has a high likelihood of killing it all the same, since a given random I/O is probably pretty non-optional.) Wikipedia also notes, > the message has been cited as an example of poor usability in computer user interfaces. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abort,_Retry,_Fail%3F
- epcoa 3y ago
  In DOS the infamous Abort, Retry, (Ignore), Fail was the default handling of "critical errors". Abort would terminate immediately, and fail would return control to the program with an error code. You could override this however: https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/DOS/ch19/CH19-2.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100206220048/http://webster.cs...
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Ahhh. I remember as a kid playing some game and sometimes this would come up. We learned that Fail would allow the game to keep running but the background for the scene simply didn’t appear (I guess that I/O was optional).

kens 3y ago

The original definitions of "hard error" and "soft error" were for disks and go back to the early 1970s at least. A soft error was a recoverable error that could be handled by re-reading the disk sector. A hard error was a permanent disk error that could not be recovered.

seeknotfind 3y ago
Checks out: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hard+error%2Csoft+error&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hard+error%2Cs...
favorited 3y ago
Seems in line with how Windows was using them: > These messages were special because they were generated from inside the I/O system

mike_hock 3y ago

[Abort] [Retry] [Cancel] What's the difference between abort and cancel?

dataflow 3y ago
Isn't it Ignore and not Cancel? Where did you actually see this?
- mike_hock 3y ago
  > Where did you actually see this uhh ...
  - dataflow 3y ago
    My comment was too hasty (sorry) but my point was that you seemed to be asking about the behavior of something that doesn't actually exist, and in fact might never have. (?) I'm not sure where Raymond got it from, or he was just doing this from memory, but Googling around, I don't see an Abort button here: https://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/1261286563.or.360017.png https://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/1261286563.or.360017... All the 3-button versions of the dialog I recall are Abort/Retry/Ignore, not Cancel. So it's kind of hard to answer "what does Cancel do"!
    - mike_hock 3y ago
      He was probably doing it from memory then since the dialog box is made in HTML (it's not a screenshot).
- NoPicklez 3y ago
  Depends which OS, Windows would often use Cancel in place of Ignore
  - dataflow 3y ago
    I have a hard time believing this considering the flag for it in Windows is called MB_ABORTRETRYIGNORE. How old of a Windows version are we talking? Are you sure you've seen this in actual Windows and not in an altered/joke screenshot?

BangbokAsin 3y ago

[flagged]

sedatk 3y ago

Such errors were called "critical errors" on DOS. They were called critical because the app could not continue execution unless the error was resolved. Windows seems to have picked a softer name.

I_am_uncreative 3y ago

“‘Abort, Retry, Fail?’ was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we’d remind them: if you see this message, always choose ‘Retry.'” — Bad’l Ron, Wakener, Morgan Polysoft (SMAC)