Microsoft's BSOD Is Getting More Descriptive With QR Codes (cio.com) 156
itwbennett writes: Reddit user javelinnl posted a picture last week showing a new dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) featuring a QR code and a link that may appear in a future version of Windows 10. "Right now, the code and the link take users to a webpage that discusses generic fixes for errors that might cause a crash," writes Blair Frank from CIO. "In the future, though, Microsoft could provide a QR code that leads to more specific information about what caused the computer freeze up." As of this writing, Microsoft had not responded to Frank's request for comment, but when he forced a Blue Screen of Death on his Surface Pro 3, he was unable to get a QR code to appear, though a link to the help page did. The QR code shown in the image simply points to a generic resource page for "troubleshooting blue screen errors."
Things are getting more descriptive? (Score:2)
1 - "Right now, it's hard to tell what causes the QR code to appear during a crash"
2 - "What's not clear is how the feature will end up getting implemented for general consumers."
3 - "Microsoft hasn't yet responded to a request for comment."
It hurts.
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4 - "The BSOD was caused by malicious software. The QR code takes you to a bogus phishing site."
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5 - Phishers on forums/messageboards pretending to be looking for help by posting up bogus QR codes.
6 - You are the IT expert at a company and you receive the QR code from a colleague while you're out shopping. The only way to read the QR code photo is with another phone.
7 - How about ms works on putting more description into what a particular window update does first instead of just calling them security updates when they're really some crappy useless thing like telemetry services.
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4.5 - "Reading the QR code with a Windows 10 Phone app causes the phone to crash with a BSOD, revealing another QR code. It's like a Russian doll, QR codes inside another QR codes."
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I try to find out what these patches/hotfixes are for in windows update, by clicking where it says click here for more information
They cant even get an intern to write even the most basic of information about shit.
Could be even more descriptive (Score:5, Funny)
I think what Microsoft really needs to incorporate, is the transformational power of Emojis to liven up each BSOD into a masterpiece.
Re:Could be even more descriptive (Score:5, Funny)
I found an appropriate emoji. [popsugar-assets.com]
I think that's a core dump.
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But then which emoji do you use? Do they throw a smiley face at you? Will they then release their own happy looking :-D smiley, or will they license the use of Apple's :-D smiley which is far more reflective of the face I make when I see a BSOD.
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Another feature Apple had way before Microsoft! [wikimedia.org]
Danger (Score:1)
Slippery slope prediction:
PC hits BSOD
PC automatically submits a bug report and uploads full crash dump as an attachment
PC displays QR code pointing to the bug report
User posts QR code to forum
Black hat reads forum looking for QR codes, visits each bug report, downloads all the crash dumps, and mines for sensitive data in the crash dumps.
Microsoft's official response: If you're worried about your privacy, then you can go to Some > Obscure > Menu and click "Do not automatically submit full crash dumps.
Windows Phone (Score:4, Funny)
Windows Phone sales set to double, as Windows Phone users now need a phone to take a picture of the QR code when their phone crashes.
One steps forward after two steps back? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Their text information was always utter garbage and did very little to determine the cause of a BSOD unless you had one very specific and very badly coded driver.
Now their dump files on the other hand have a whole world of useful information in them which can point back to the exact program driver or call that caused the BSOD in the first place. And those files are still there.
Seriously determining the problem based on stop code was no different then determining the problem based on interpretive dance, and
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Yeah I'll give you that one.
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Whatever technical information they were putting on the screen ended up in a Google search, so they removed it. They're putting the information back using QR codes to force people to directly go from BSOD to microsoft.com, sidestepping Google and its ads.
Old dog, old tricks? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the future, though, Microsoft could provide a QR code that leads to more specific information about what caused the computer freeze up.
Microsoft has not been able to provide useful error messages for the last 30 years, why should it be any different with QR codes?
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Still, BSODs? (Score:2)
"My God, it's full of shit!" (Score:1)
Here's the last time MS over-did BSOD's [dailymail.co.uk]
BSOD still exists??? (Score:2)
Having used W10 since its release on multiple computers, I've never seen a BSOD. I've had the odd freeze requiring a 5-second power button reset but not a single BSOD. I thought MS had done away with them.
They are there for troubleshooting (Score:3)
A BSOD means the OS faced an error so critical, there can be no recovery. To keep data corruption from happening, the system must immediately halt. So what it does is dumps what information it can to the screen, and if possible a dump file, and then halts.
You generally see them with hardware errors (not all hardware errors manifest as BSODs but some do) but also with serious driver errors and some other things. They are rare, but they happen, and the codes they give can help you figure out what went wrong.
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Perhaps I should have been clearer: I have never seen a BSOD on Windows 10. As an IT manager in the 1990s I saw more BSODs than I care to remember. Iomega drives were a particularly rich source of blue screens as I recall. But I've never seen one on Windows 10 and I don't think ever saw one on Windows 8 either.
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Microsoft effectively disabled the BSOD starting with Win 7 by causing the PC to reboot. This single change was a marketing strategy, and it worked, by ensuring that people would only see the BSOD if they were standing in front of the computer as it happened.
How to disable automatic restart. [about.com]
This may well have contributed to why you do not "see" them any more. Doesn't mean they do not happen!
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By Windows XP... Automatic restart was enabled by default in XP.
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Yes, they still exist. I was having hardware problems last year on a Win10 PC and got to see plenty of BSODs.
The problem turned out to a wonky PSU, meaning it didn't always manifest in the same way and it took a long time and a lot of dump-trawling (via a third-party tool) to diagnose. But the BSODs and their dump-files were genuinely useful in tracing the problem.
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Having used W10 since its release on multiple computers, I've never seen a BSOD.
BSODs haven't been a reflection of windows coding for the past 15 years. They exist but it takes real effort to see one, such as failing hardware, or a really incompetent driver.
I have seen one on W10. But then I also had to file a warranty claim on my Surface the day after.
Windows still crashes? (Score:1)
This will probably make me sound like a dick, but are you effing kidding me? After all these years Windows still crashes? How often does this happen? Does it happen less than it used to? Is this behavior so baked in to the OS that it can't be fixed? How much of NT is in Windows 10? Pre-NT?
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Can they run ads in the BSOD ? (Score:4, Funny)
I think they should also patent the idea.
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So, what you're saying is...
1. Make OS
2. Sell copies of OS
3. Profit
4. Crash copies of OS
5. Profit
You're supposed to leave the "???" in there and only use "Profit" once. It gets a little too scary/real when you actually start inserting Profit everywhere it's really occurring while also filling in the ???.
BSOD screen saver update? (Score:2)
I run the BSOD screen saver on Linux boxes, particularly at work, where any of the MS ones provoke "interest". I'm hoping that there will be an update soon, to add one that has these QR codes. The QR code should point to the OpenBSD home page, I think, since that's what the home computers mostly run.
Great! Now a BSOD can hack your phone! (Score:3)
I foresee malware that fakes a BSOD in order to send your phone via QR-code to a website that then hacks the phone. Genius!
It seems MS is losing what little expertise it had in the security-space fast. This demented idea is a good example.
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Press Caps Lock key. If the light comes on, it's not frozen. If the light doesn't come on, it's frozen. Universal with all OSes that are oriented for keyboard use, as far as I know. It has been like this since at least the 1980s. Those lights on the keyboard, they actually tell you stuff - if you know to look. They also have conveyed other information in the past but not so much any more. I think 5 blinks was a boot disk error on an Amiga? I dunno, it has been a while - obviously.
But yeah, press the Caps Lo
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I know that. The average user does not. People with a clue will rarely get caught by this. Most lack that clue and that is what the design of a "average user" OS like Windows must expect.
This literally tells me less information (Score:1)
They're saying that to interpret a BSOD, I "MUST" point a smart phone at the screen... scan the QR code... and then MS will tell me what the fuck is going on?
Look, I have no problem with there being a QR code on the screen. Whatever. But why isn't there an error code? I'm not asking for much here.
More reasons to shift things to Linux... MS is going full retard with Windows 10. Can't wait for Windows 11. Why is it that even numbered releases are always full of AIDS... its just painful.
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But why isn't there an error code?
What have you ever gotten out of an error code? All you do with that is go to a website type in a number and get a "something went wrong somewhere" response. The only decent data you get from a BSOD is afterwards when recovering and digging through the dump file.
More reasons to shift things to Linux
Look I like a good MS bash as much as the next guy, but are you insane? The kernel panic on Linux just shits numbers onto the screen which are nearly always indecipherable. Personally I don't understand why they don't just draw a ASCII art picture o
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Are you kidding? It will literally tell you the type of error in that error code. So what do I get out of it? typically I know whether I have to start doing ram tests or if there is a corrupted driver. One of the two things tends to be the cause of a BSOD. And the error code tells you which one it is...
Look you want to play with a smartphone app... go nuts. All I'm asking for is an error code somewhere on the screen. It doesn't have to be blinking or in giant letters or anything. Just somewhere. To literall
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It will literally tell you the type of error in that error code.
You mean like irql_not_less_or_equal or a series of numbers that when you type into google just give you irql_not_less_or_equal? Incidentally an error that comes up if you have a misbehaving driver, a fan failing on a video card, or your antivirus program just had a stroke (just to give 3 examples of problems I've had that have resulted in 100% identical error codes in Windows XP but were only actually determined after reading the dump file).
typically I know whether I have to start doing ram tests or if there is a corrupted driver.
Garbage. Windows is unable to tell the difference between a corrup
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I see a lot of error codes. And I am right nearly every time when I see an error code as to what went wrong.
I know the error codes. You want your bar codes? Have them. I am not trying to take anything from you. Let me have my error code.
At the very least there should be a setting to make the BSOD give an error code or not. Then I can just enable it.
Anyway... I have little patience for people that presume to tell other people on their machines how to structure their own user interface. You're like some fello
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If you've seen a lot of BSOD... and I have... you get very familiar with the error codes.
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What have you ever gotten out of an error code?
A search term that can be used in Google?
Error messages like "File or directory not found" are pretty useless, but "Error 15723" is unique when combined with the program name, sometimes even unique enough that you find the information without the program name.
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A search term that can be used in Google?
Error messages like "File or directory not found" are pretty useless, but "Error 15723" is unique when combined with the program name, sometimes even unique enough that you find the information without the program name.
You don't see many blue screens do you. Error 15723 associated with no error code which will link you to the first page in MSDN as "Something somewhere in your computer croaked" followed by 100 posts of people complaining, followed by a few helpful links on how to determine the error through a memory dump file.
Sorry but BSOD error codes have been useful for me once and once only in my life with a single RAID controller and a poorly coded driver. Other than that I've never seen an error code on a BSOD accura
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There is an error code. The QR code is just a time saving convenience and not required. You want to go Linux? Good luck with that. Nothing is convenient in Linux.
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Way to not read or understand anything.
The error code actually tells me something. I can use my eyeball and get information. Forcing me to use a smart phone does not actually save me time. It wastes my time by forcing me to go through an additional step.
Its also a potential security problem. And it creates an additional point of failure. Lets say you're in a place that doesn't have internet access? Then that QR code is fucking worthless where as an error code works regardless. And I don't have to associate
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Nah, Linux error codes aren't really that good. I'm a pretty content Linux user (not a zealot) but there's even a special key combo to save what you can and reboot in the event of a system lock. It's like three buttons and then you press REISUB (or something like that) in sequence. I should probably remember that, actually. ;-)
But no... Cryptic error messages seem to be the default. At least you get the Event Viewer in Windows.
EASY SOLUTIONS (Score:1)
2. Printout a simple error code and dump the core a-la Linux.
The you can printout a QR code, a web page, a VR scenario or a social network report. But first do your development job more carefully.
How about a BSOD Haiku (Score:1)
Windows 10 has crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears you scream.
Why not encode some useful debug info, too? (Score:1)
https://i.imgur.com/4AOq97x.png [imgur.com]
Re: How about something more useful? (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows is designed for people who know where to click for word, solitaire and facebook.
What you call human readable is not readable for them.
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And you really expect those kinds of people to know what to do not only with a QR code but also the error message on the web site, which could be the exact same error message given directly on the BSOD?
Give me a fucking break. MS is only doing this because it gives them another lame excuse to harvest data. All of this shit could and should be done locally.
Re: How about something more useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are always privacy implications if you want to provide genuinely useful input on why a system crashed, since a crash dump can be very informative indeed about what the user was doing when the crash occurred; that's not some sinister MS-thing, just how it works. However, as the wonder full people in audience analytics 'user engagement tracking' and whatnot have spent years exploiting; it's really, really, easy to get additional data on who is following links by programmatically generating unique ones that redirect to the destination, rather than just linking directly.
If the QR code is just "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/123456" then it makes me want the damn kids to get off my lawn; but it's otherwise harmless. If it eventually ends up at that domain; but starts out as an email marketing standard referrer-slurry URL that redirects you through one or more unnecessary tracking steps before eventually landing you at the URL you were supposed to reach in the first place, that's slimy above and beyond the call of duty.
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This could be a nice attack vector - malicious agent causes BSOD on a Windows PC with QR code which the user points their iDevice/Droid device at and that in turn directs them to a drive-by-download with the real intended payload, or even just click fraud.
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Why crash their PC? Just make it look like it crashed and then you can change the QR code to new targets. Joe Average is just gonna hit reboot afterwards anyhow. Hell, after you've sent 'em through enough pages and borrows a short amount of GPU time for some mining, send 'em to a nice formal-looking page that tells them to reboot but warns them that the problem may happen again and to check back often - and trigger it at random intervals. I bet you can get away with that for months.
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A: "That is your Microsoft Support link. It takes you to the Microsoft Store and allows you to purchase Windows 10. Thanks for giving us your cellphone info and good day."
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It happens too often with Microsoft software for it to be a serious bug. After all, there was enough time to create a QR code for it, then the fault was ALREADY known...
Serious bugs get fixed.
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For those people, Chromebook is probably a better choice.
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Yes, most BSODs are actually pretty much useless for tracking down a problem. For anything less than completely obvious errors you have to load the mini dump(s) into a debugger and look at the stack trace and/or underlying error (message/exception) data structures.
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Even my 70 year old mother can do that.
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes this great is that your client/coworker/family member can take a picture of the code and send it to you. That's far more doable than having them try to remember what the error message said. "Oh, it said skynet falls or something". Apps like Google goggles will search the picture for the QR and you have usable information.
What if your client/coworker/family member directly take a picture of the error message? Why going through this QR crap?
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Because it is hip and there is an ap for that. Think of the hipsters and apper apps or something like that.
In all seriousness though. I have had people take pics of the errors before and describe what they were doing when it happened. That was key in finding a problem back in2000 or 2001 when ms office had a memory leak involved with copying links to the clipboard to use in documents. Turned out the problem was already solved with sp3 due out a week or so later. I have used the same principles several time
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because their is a lot of support for reading and recognising QR so the person you send the error too doesn't need to manually type it all in maybe.
Except that the QR code does not actually contain the actual text of the error message but is just a generic URL describing how to solve blue screens in general (rather than this one specifically). Utterly useless.
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Devil's Advocate: This is a proof-of-concept without the backend being finished just yet.
That said, a lot of error messages should make an experienced helper go, "Oh, just close out of that program, wait ten seconds, start it back up." anyway. A QR code will force him to go to Microsoft's knowledge base (does that show ads?) only to facepalm at realizing which error it is. Again.
At the very least this will make the knowledge base see a sudden surge in use, and department leads just love that for their quart
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There is absolutely nothing stopping them embedding the error code in the URL of the QR code.
They could, but they don't.
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Even my 70 year old mother can do that.
My 70 year mother was taught to read when she was young. And she still masters that skill.
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Every bit as useful as a "There was an error, OK?" dialog box with a single "Whatever" button.
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You use the event ID and the error number (gleaned from the event viewer that you opened up from the run dialog) and see what happened just prior to the crash and you search for those if you can't figure it out. There's actually a really need service that will aid with that research - they used to give a copy to the MVPs (third party gift to get us to recommend them) back in the day. I've not participated in the program (or even used Windows) in quite a while so I've forgotten the name.
Truth is, Windows isn
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or at least we have lots of data to help diagnose it but we aren't going to give you any of it
All the data is right there in c:\windows\minidump.dmp. But you never bothered wondering why your computer dumps memory contents during a BSOD right?
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
All the data is right there in c:\windows\minidump.dmp
... at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard. As I said in my original post, "we have all the data but we're not going to give it to you", all you need to do to get it is walk your mother through running the command-line dumpchk.exe and interpreting the results over the phone for you. It's so simple, anyone can do it!
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You're right, the linux approach of filling the screen with numbers is much better!.
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Great, so if you know what you're doing you can pour through some obscure file in a directory that we tell users never to look in. Why not provide something remotely helpful?
Like ok, maybe you can't do much analysis on the BSOD itself because the system has crashed, but then maybe it could launch an application by default, on the following boot, that would analyze the dump against known issues and provide some guess as to what went wrong. That's just off the top of my head, but I certainly feel like it w
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Except they've been doing this for over nine years. It been there since Vista with the automated "Problem Reporting" feature in action center. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Reporting-and-solving-computer-problems [microsoft.com]
It doesn't always give you steps to solve the crash. But I have seen it tell me a crash was due to a driver which I should update. This was before Windows Update starting handling most driver update duties.
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
Theoretically, MS could even collect this information across systems and say, "Lots of other people with the same version of the driver have experienced similar crashes, but the problem appears to be fixed in there new driver, which can be downloaded here:" and then link to it.
Except you turned that service off at Thanksgiving because you didn't want Microsoft spying on your mother.
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Did you miss the part where you disabled telemetry without actually waiting to see what was done with it?
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:4, Informative)
Like, I don't know, say, a system log that would store messages from drivers and system components like dmesg?
How about a memory dump before crashing that can be inspected later?
What makes you think that Windows does not store messages and does not create a dump (hint: it does. Stop errors are logged in the system log, and default is to create a dump file upon a stop error. Space is even reserved for the dump file on the system drive to guarantee that a dump can be created even if disk is full).
But hey, why don't you make your own assumptions and go by them to diss on something that you obviously don't know anything about?
When you restart your computer, Windows will recognize the dump file and will offer you to upload it to Microsoft. In case of device driver crashes (the most common cause along with hw fails) Microsoft will even notify the vendor if they have registered for crash information.
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:5, Informative)
Like, I don't know, say, a system log that would store messages from drivers and system components like dmesg?
You mean like the windows event log which captures the cause of the BSOD and stores it for looking at later?
How about a memory dump before crashing that can be inspected later?
You mean the file c:\windows\minidump.dmp that is created when a BSOD?
Whatever happened to human readable error messages even?
Sure, care to name an example of an OS that provides a human readable error message for a complex issue that was able to cause the kernel itself to croak?
Stop reinventing the goddamn wheel, it's not gonna work if it's square.
The wheel hasn't changed. Only the shape of the check engine light is changing, and quite frankly that was always useless and broken.
Re:How about something more useful? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, while the post you're replying too is dumb, there is one really simple reason not to change the BSOD.
Reliability.
Lets go over the scenario and we'll see WHY the BSOD screen is SUPPOSED TO BE EXTREMELY SIMPLE.
A BSOD occurs when the kernel has detected a major failure or corruption within itself. At the point when its determined to BSOD, the system IS UNSTABLE AND UNSAFE. The system is deciding THE ABSOLUTE SAFEST THING TO DO IS STOP DOING ANYTHING, because THE SYSTEM IS UNSTABLE AND IN AN UNKNOWN STATE.
At this stage POTENTIALLY ANY INSTRUCTION CAN BE FATAL because you are no longer sure about anything in RAM, any data structures such as page mappings or anything else. (Sure there are some bug check BSODs that are relatively safe, but those don't happen in release/unchecked builds.)
You do as ABSOLUTELY LITTLE AS POSSIBLE in the BSOD phase of runtime. The mini dump is written to a pre-allocated location of disk ... THE SWAP FILE, that the OS put into a protected region of ram so it couldn't be corrupted in the event of a problem. It doesn't allocate more space, it doesn't move space, it just writes to known good locations. If it tried to read the disk directory, it may be corrupt and read it incorrectly, then write to the wrong portion of your disk and destroy the data structure.
On the next boot, when the system is in a stable state, THEN that mini dump (or full dump if thats the case) is written to an actual file on the file system that you can access, but its in swap until the OS boots, sees it in swap, and writes it to a standard file.
Now some dip shit from marketing wants to put a 100% worthless QR code on the screen. Thats something that has to be calculated. That means intentionally doing more computations on an unstable system and ignoring all conventional wisdom. The QR code provides no benefit and adds risk.
Its a stupid fucking idea probably done by some young engineer to naive to understand why he shouldn't be playing in that code. Or worse still, probably some jackass in the phone group decided that crashes should have a QR code so they could sell phones with QR readers to admins.
Across the board, its a stupid fucking change with way bigger risk than benefits.
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Now some dip shit from marketing wants to put a 100% worthless QR code on the screen. Thats something that has to be calculated. That means intentionally doing more computations on an unstable system and ignoring all conventional wisdom. The QR code provides no benefit and adds risk.
Why do you think it's a marketing idea?
There is absolutely no reason the QR code could not be calculated without additional risk. If the space has been set aside, the kernel thread has it's own "safe" space for the stack (which it must have since also creating a dump in the swap file requires at least some call instructions). You can absolutely work out in advance how much has to be set aside for the QR code and -computation. Just like with the minidump.
Now, what could be the upside? While the QR code canno
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Yup. It's not like we can't spare a few Hz and a couple of Kb of RAM to make a pretty QR code - it might even (emphasis on might) turn out to be valuable. I could see this actually being a good thing. It's not like you need a dedicated device to read QR codes. It's not like the vast majority of admins don't have a "special QR code reader" right in 'em - called a camera.
Best of both worlds might be that it'd scan a *local* database and feed you information from that. I'm thinking enterprise use. Then they co
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There is absolutely no reason the QR code could not be calculated without additional risk. If the space has been set aside, the kernel thread has it's own "safe" space for the stack (which it must have since also creating a dump in the swap file requires at least some call instructions).
I have mod points but I am going to respond instead: While the parent person may have sounded a bit hyperbolic, what he is saying is absolutely true: When the kernel enters the BSOD/crash routine, nothing is guaranteed to be safe. The stuff that was pre-allocated and set aside? Not safe.
How does a CPU "know" where the QR code routines are at? By a jump table full of pointers to locations in RAM. How does the CPU "know" where that jump table is? Ultimately, it is jump tables all the way down until you get to
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When the kernel enters the BSOD/crash routine, nothing is guaranteed to be safe. The stuff that was pre-allocated and set aside? Not safe.
Incorrect. Any memory that has been marked as read-only can absolutely be considered safe. Indeed, the STOP condition may have been caused by some process or the kernel attempting to write such memory. So if the OS marks its core memory (code, jump tables etc) as readonly after loading, those jumptables and that code can absolute be assumed to be safe.
How does a CPU "know" where the QR code routines are at? By a jump table full of pointers to locations in RAM
No, initialized pointer to jump table sitting in readonly memory pages.
I have seen computers crash so hard that they could not even spit out their error message and the result of trying was to do some nasty things with the floppy disk controller.
Obviously that can happen. If the graphics card misbehaves, attempts to use the screen
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Erm. I will refrain from my natural reaction right now. You are missing entire classes of error in your thought processes sir.
Unless operating systems are shipping with electrically perfect non-degradable ROMs, it is entirely possible that the software tagged read only memory that you speak of has been modified. An errant DMA controller misbehaving due to an electrical spike for example. Obviously, the RAM itself could have failed. The big one your calculations are missing is the CPU itself could be failing
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Since the dawn of bsod's they've trapped the last known error - and dropped it on the screen - I believe its after the dmp file is written too.
I don't see why it would be a big deal to translate that error into a qr-code - it might be handy for end users.
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Take a picture of the QR code, send it to tech support, they have all the info they need. I don't understand what the negativity is about.
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If it's anything like every other event log entry, you scan the QR Code and get a page that says
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I think it should ask me Abort, Retry or Fail, just for old time's sake.
I remember those on cable TV (Score:2)
For a very long time, the Amiga+(at least)Genlock, if not Amiga+Video Toaster was the only inexpensive computer that could handle NTSC/PAL overlays in real time, so cable startups used them for program guides.
I rarely saw a GURU Meditation, generally when debugging a driver I was writing, but I love that the BSOD screen saver includes them.
At least there was real useful data in them.
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If you need to transcribe the actual error details, accuracy matters.
Most humans are terrible at transcribing what they read directly to text (especially if it's full of numbers and symbols).
In the case of Haiku (the operating system), the QR Code in the kernel debugger includes more information about the error (not just the error name), so it makes it easier to transcribe what the user sees on the screen to text which can be used to file a bug report.
https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/... [haiku-os.org]
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You can leave some of the system reserved and some of the RAM reserved just for this sort of thing. What you can't really do is try to recover. Well, you can try but you can't really trust what's in memory or anything.
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Didn't Microsoft buy Sysinternals like 10 years ago?