Error Hell

Mkamba

Now, I know I should really take a deep breath and relax, but I'm just so baffled by these error messages that I'm speechless and I simply must purge my frustration.

This morning, a couple of coworkers who've been banging their head against an error for a few days called me over to look at a problem they were having with a small web application recently deployed into our production environment. The error message: error occurred during upload........! Error connecting to Database to insert/update status of upload...Login failed for user 'FOO\fooUser'.

A quick glance through his source finds these other grammatical gems:

Error connecting to Database to reload Master from Scratch changes...
Your File: 'foo.txt' is already uploaded.!
Please input or select a file name......!
Please contact Foo Department - Account Number is invalid (code 7501)......!

I'm a big fan of multiple punctution marks... Only, I prefer to keep it in certains contexts - emails to friends, LOL Cats and WoW Trade chat are all appropriate places for well chosen punctuation multiplicities. I'm fairly certain that ".......!" is only acceptable when stating something like, "Chuck Norris and a murloc walked into a tavern......!"

I have now added to our pathetic Development Standards document an Error Message section which states: All error messages should be user-friendly complete sentences which employ proper grammatical structure and punctuation. Wherever possible avoid using technical terms, abbreviations and informal language.

For those of you interested in what the problem was, the web.config was never updated to contain the connection string for the production server. Brillant!

TRWTF: Murloc Pockets

dtech

That's nothing. I once encoutered an small open-source app that stated:
Error 1234 occured: xxxxxx
Probable reason: the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.

Well, I did make a typo somewhere, but that was just plain unnecessary

DOA

@dtech said:

I once encoutered an small open-source app that stated: Error 1234 occured: xxxxxx Probable reason: the problem is between the keyboard and the chair

I'd love to watch some clueless user start looking around trying to find what's between the keyboard and the chair that's causing the problem. Not to mention listen to the following call to tech support. "Hi, it says there's a problem between the keyboard and the chair. Could it be my cup of coffee?"

ZippoLag

@DOA said:

@dtech said:
I once encoutered an small open-source app that stated: Error 1234 occured: xxxxxx Probable reason: the problem is between the keyboard and the chair
I'd love to watch some clueless user start looking around trying to find what's between the keyboard and the chair that's causing the problem. Not to mention listen to the following call to tech support. "Hi, it says there's a problem between the keyboard and the chair. Could it be my cup of coffee?"

LMAO, it WOULD be nice to hear a user admit they are a case of pbkac, tho whomever answers the call will probably have to explain them what it means, either that or just drop over the floor laughing.-