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Chrome IT Technology

Chrome To Show Error Codes, Similar To Windows BSOD Screens (zdnet.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Google Chrome will get support for error codes, similar to the ones seen on Windows blue screen of death (BSOD) crash pages. From a report: The idea is to provide Chrome users with a code they can search online and find debugging help for various types of crashes. Work on this new feature started in November last year, and the error codes are already under testing in current Chrome Canary (v81) releases. The error codes will appear on the so-called "sad tab" page, also known as the "Aw, Snap!" page, which Chrome displays when a tab crashes.
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Chrome To Show Error Codes, Similar To Windows BSOD Screens More

Chrome To Show Error Codes, Similar To Windows BSOD Screens

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  • An OS has a myriad of possibilities for crashing, it has to handle temperamental hardware, memory allocation, thread management, complex I/O and so on.

    A web browser has to fetch and render web pages. That's it. Most of what is does is via OS API calls (or should be). Browsers are bloated. That a browser needs its own crash reporting system is bloat squared.

    • Too busy making more privacy busting "features" to fix code.

    • They did.
      Try {
      code
      } except (error e) {
      return "Aw Snap!"
      }

      The browser doesn't fail you can actually go an load an other page or hit refresh.

      But there is some HTML and Javascript written so bad that there isn't any clear way out without an error page.

      The Aw Snap screen isn't really the same as a BSOD it is more like the error that you application had quit unexpectedly.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That's better than my boss, who, when an error is discovered in the code, puts a try-catch block around it, with a pass statement in the catch, and calls it fixed.

        After all, nobody's seeing any error messages that way....

        He calls it building "robust" software.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          A fucking hate developers that eat errors. Worst kind of developer. I deal with those constantly and it is usually a whining dev saying his code doesn't work on a server and it isn't reporting an error so must be the servers fault. When I do code reviews as soon as I come across this behaviour I immediately send it back to the developer saying "unfit for production", do basic error handling and then resubmit at a later date. Have pissed off a few teams in my time doing that but it is better than invisible e

      • Nope you're wrong. With JavaScript disabled, I can see a page rendered in Chrome, briefly, and get the Ad snap. Just show me what you rendered so far because the information I need is right there.

        That kind of crash needs a better fix. You've done work, show me the results. They didn't fix the crashes, they removed useful work. "An error occurred and you may not be swing the whole page" would be acceptable. Removing useful information is no different from an actual crash. Smaller scale, but the same effect.

    • Yeah "that's it". Except for a good layout engine, including text display, being one of the hardest tasks for consumer software there is. Not even counting the, I agree, stupid fact that they re basically shitty OSes nowadays.

      And that nobody said it's not just about errors in the web page itself! That previousy were just ... ignored. Because surely those aren't the norm! --.-- (Yes, HTML5, you are a cancer, and need to die, together with your "team spaghetti code browsers" aka WhatWG mother.)

  • So why not include text explanations for possible errors instead of a stupid code?
    • Then you couldn't as easily search online to see the million other people asking about it from 3 years earlier.

      • I know it sounds crazy, and might be hard to implement in an OS like Chrome, ... but I have this novel idea: Make the error message use this newfangled technology, where it *links* to a seach or info page!

        Or how about this: Tell the user the damn origin of the problem, so he can fix it, like every program on an OS with logging facilities since the inception or Unix!
        So he does have to play a game of whack a hidden mole and seek usless guesswork forums!

      • Yup, that's exactly what Windows error codes give you. "Error 3172545", for which a search will reveal 50% other people asking the same question, 40% clickbait robogenerated responses designed to get you to install some paid app, possibly malware, and 10% random guessing about reinstalling drivers and whatnot. Way to go, Google!

    • So google will get more click ad revenue duh!

    • Because then you would have to know what the error actually is. Instead you can use the Microsoft Method(TM) and just issue a code and a generic message that says:

      Something went wrong. Please check:
      (1) Your Date is correct
      (2) Your Time is correct
      (3) Your Internet connection is working
      (4) The moon is not waning
      (5) Your momma sucked yo daddy's dick last night and swallowed
      (7) Your daddy sucked yo dick last night and swallowed
      (8) The ambient temperature is below 0 degrees
      (9) The ambient temperature is above

  • Chrome is the new IE now with system crash hooks!

  • Spam pages for “Chrome error 37 [solved 2020]” with ChromeFixer 2020 which will turn out to be ransomware will suddenly appear in search results.

  • If you have to resort to searching error codes then there's a huge problem with usability. This stuff should be hidden, not front and center. And the stuff they're hiding is what you'd like to see up front!

    There are already way too many cryptic flags to start tweaking that the end user doesn't see without digging. Why not start with cleaning that up? It's hard to keep up with all the feeds and suggested content and prefetching stuff you have to disable, Firefox is better but there's still enough to disable

    • I disagree. As someone who might be able to do something about a problem, when all I see is a "usability friendly" error message of "something went wrong, sorry", I hate it. That gives me nothing to go off of. I want error codes, because then at least there's a chance for root cause.

    • This stuff should be hidden

      Yeah, people should be kept in the dark for their own good. That always makes them feel better.

  • Can I have a Firefox extension that lets me search for how to fix Chrome crashes?

  • Error codes are probably as old as software development itself.

    Every Unix tool returns one as part of its normal operation. Which you can look up in the man page.
    And many GUI tools (the ones not written by guidiots) contain them right in the logs, and if they don't tell you what the precise problem is right away, if requested down to a debug level of detail.

    As they say: Those who don't understand Unix, are doomed to re-invent it. Badly.
    (Or any established thing, for that matter.)

  • ... because error messages are sooo last century.
  • What a fresh and innovative idea! I can't wait for the websites that will pop up when searching for an error code that will be happy to diagnose my trouble if I would simply download and run their small application.

  • Welcome back to the 80s! Show a numeric error with a message, and make sure your numeric errors are unique so that you can tell exactly where the error happened, and include the name of the module in the error. Such a simple concept.

    In my catch routines, I always append my error to the previous error and include the numeric error number in the text as well. That way by the time the user sees an error message, they'll see the start of the error thread at the beginning and the last error at the end, with e

  • Best Chrome Fix (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Retired ICS ( 6159680 )

    The best way to fix Chrome errors is to uninstall it and use something that works.

  • I had 8 tabs open the other day, and Chrome was using 12GB of RAM. I kinda think they need to fix their memory leaks before they worry about the blue screens caused FROM their memory leaks.

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