as a sysadmin this so much.

Amber 🌸

We did a fucky wucky (the database migrations failed and all your data is gone)

Trash Panda

@[email protected]
The best would be 3 options
Oppsie something went wrong

There was a connection error

And

Connection issue, error number 483757292, the di gait couldn't flinger with the blooberg, check your technical_name_here and consult the full log at /Im/utterly/incompetent.log

Bardoru Bardoru :padoru: 🌸 :genderqueer_potion:

@puppygirlhornypost2 I never knew what the hell an error code meant, but at least it gave me something to go on if I needed to ask somebody for help.

ocdtrekkie

@puppygirlhornypost2 "Something happened" during the Windows 10 upgrade remains my favorite useless error ever. It doesn't even bother to explain that what happened was a problem. Just you know, that *something* had *occurred*.

:neobot_book: *Ada, neptunyl⁷-hydroxide :neptune:

@[email protected] my programs tend to crash with

"catastrophic failure. context is corrupt, cannot recover. sorry, i am going to crash now. goodbye"

mx alex tax1a - 2020 (4)

@ada @puppygirlhornypost2 one of our work programs can give you a "Unable to comply" error when you ask it to do something unimplemented

All-Purpose Cultural Catgirl Vari-Vari 🌸

@puppygirlhornypost2 Also when Windows started throwing a "general exception" error code for damn near everything. Devs have gotten damn lazy with their exception handling it feels like.

Akari Mekahime

@puppygirlhornypost2 this, and another thing that boils my blood is "just setting things up for you~~ just wait a moment 🥺 " no, fuck you, what are you doing???

Yes this is referencing the windows 10 OOB setup

vxo

@puppygirlhornypost2 I still remember when someone told me on IRC about how she was trying to debug code she wrote ten years prior and at one critical stage it threw an error:

"yiff yiff yiff"

she hadn't even commented in the code what that would have meant

greeeeen :blobcatpresentgreen: (christmas edition)

@[email protected] looking at you, firefox

hellhound gayming

@puppygirlhornypost2 honestly i don't even agree with that approach. regular users do need to know what the nature of the error is (not necessarily the exact technical details but SOME concrete explanation beyond "an error occured") so they can actually determine whether or not it's their fault and what steps they can take to fix it. these days with the useless error messages people just have to Guess and try various absurd rituals for 30 minutes, getting more and more frustrated, until they trip and fall on the right solution by mistake (or more likely, just give up)

Gwen, the kween fops :neofox_flag_trans: :sheher:

@[email protected] @[email protected] windows does this specifically to obfuscate the errors so that hackers get as little info as possible and have a harder time creating attacks. Which isn't good for the end user but it's at least a reason...

Misuse Case

@puppygirlhornypost2 @bonaventuresoft Also if error messages provide diagnostic codes like that it can be a security vulnerability.

Error messages should tell a user what to do next (like who to contact), but not give clues about the error which could provide information for developing an exploit.

Amber 🌸

@[email protected] @[email protected] true! I've seen countless times where things like session tokens were in plaintext logs, where users unfamiliar with that sensitive information posted them on a public pastebin and got their accounts compromised. There’s a reason most operating systems don’t allow unprivileged users to use dmesg.

hellhound gayming

@puppygirlhornypost2 but the WORST ones are where they have a generic error message WITH troubleshooting steps. like. "Sorry, couldn't sign you in. Please check your Internet connection or try rebooting your PC" and the actual problem is that you put a space in the username field or something

Misuse Case

@puppygirlhornypost2 @bonaventuresoft Also why the thing about error messages is a NIST control (I look those up a lot).

Elizabeth [38c3]

@puppygirlhornypost2

Cassandrich

@puppygirlhornypost2 Even complete novices. You don't have to understand the message. You just need to be able to type it into a search engine and see how other ppl solved it.

Sometimes I think this is WHY they removed the messages. Enshittifucation of (or just feeling out of control over) search and the threat of malicious hits leading users to download malware.

Cassandrich

@MekahimeAkari @puppygirlhornypost2 It means "installing preloaded junkware".

Cassandrich

@MisuseCase @puppygirlhornypost2 @bonaventuresoft Not if the message is not sent to a channel that belongs to the attacker (or someone other than the legitimate user). This kind of wrong thinking is endemic, that just because you're not supposed to output php or python errors in the http data stream, this also means you're not supposed to show error messages on the user's monitor.