*
(l)user error
(rm -rf /bin/laden)
..disk or the processor is on fire.
/dev/clue was linked to /dev/null
/dev/hand not configured
/pub/lunch
_Rosin_ core solder? But...
50% of the manual is in .pdf readme files
A
a BSD machine?
A plumber is needed, the network drain is clogged
A star wars satellite accidently blew up the WAN.
According to Microsoft, it's by design
All of the packets are empty.
another bottle.
appears to be a Slow/Narrow SCSI-0 Interface problem
Arcserve crashed the server again.
astropneumatic oscillations in the water-cooling
asynchronous inode failure
Atilla the Hub
ATM cell has no roaming feature turned on, notebooks can't connect
attempting to log back on.
B
Backbone adjustment
Backbone Scoliosis
backup tape overwritten with copy of system manager's favourite CD
Bad cafeteria food landed all the sysadmins in the hospital.
bad ether in the cables
Bad user karma.
bank holiday - system operating credits not recharged
be in it too.
be topped up.
because Bill Gates is a Jehovah's witness and so nothing can work on St.
because of network lag due to too many people playing deathmatch
Big to little endian conversion error
bit bucket overflow
Bit rot
BNC (brain not connected)
Bogon emissions
Boredom in the Kernel.
Borg implants are failing
Borg nanites have infested the server
boss forgot system password
Boss' kid fucked up the machine
broadcast packets on wrong frequency
Browser's cookie is corrupted -- someone's been nibbling on it.
Budget cuts
Budget cuts forced us to sell all the power cords for the servers.
bugs in the RAID
C
Cache miss - please take better aim next time
CD-ROM server needs recalibration
cellular telephone interference
Change in Earth's rotational speed
Change your language to Finnish.
Chewing gum on /dev/sd3c
clock speed
Collapsed Backbone
comet.
Communications satellite used by the military for star wars.
Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the
Complete Transient Lockout
Computer room being moved. Our systems are down for the weekend.
computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.
Computers under water due to SYN flooding.
Cosmic ray particles crashed through the hard disk platter
Cow-tippers tipped a cow onto the server.
CPU needs bearings repacked
CPU needs recalibration
CPU radiator broken
CPU-angle has to be adjusted because of vibrations coming from the nearby road
crop circles in the corn shell
D
Daemon escaped from pentagram
Daemons did it
Daemons loose in system.
Data for intranet got routed through the extranet and landed on the internet.
database working.
dealer.
Decreasing electron flux
Defunct processes
descramble code needed from software company
Dew on the telephone lines.
Did you pay the new Support Fee?
Digital Manipulator exceeding velocity parameters
disks spinning backwards - toggle the hemisphere jumper.
divide-by-zero error
Domain controller not responding
doppler effect
dry joints on cable plug
Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number
of
Due to the CDA, we no longer have a root account.
Dumb terminal
dynamic software linking table corrupted
Dyslexics retyping hosts file on servers
E
Electrical conduits in machine room are melting.
Electricians made popcorn in the power supply
Electromagnetic energy loss
electro-magnetic pulses from French above ground nuke testing.
electromagnetic radiation from satellite debris
Electrons on a bender
Elves on strike. (Why do they call EMAG Elf Magic)
emissions from GSM-phones
endothermal recalibration
error: one bad user found in front of screen
ether leak
Evil dogs hypnotised the night shift
evil hackers from Serbia.
excess surge protection
excessive collisions & not enough packet ambulances
F
failed trials, system needs redesigned
Failure to adjust for daylight savings time.
Fanout dropping voltage too much, try cutting some of those little traces
fat electrons in the lines
Fatal error right in front of screen
Feature not yet implemented
Feature was not beta tested
featured in the next upgrade.
Fedexed from Wyoming
Fiber optics caused gas main leak
filesystem not big enough for Jumbo Kernel Patch
firewall needs cooling
Firmware update in the coffee machine
first Saturday after first full moon in Winter
"Flat tire on station wagon with tapes. (""Never underestimate the bandwidth
of a "
floating point processor overflow
Fluorescent lights are generating negative ions. If turning them off doesn't
"Forced to support NT servers; sysadmins quit."
fractal radiation jamming the backbone
G
"get more lines so we don't have voice lines."""
global warming
greenpeace free'd the mallocs
Groundskeepers stole the root password
H
had to use hammer to free stuck disk drive heads.
halon system went off and killed the operators.
Hard drive sleeping. Let it wake up on it's own...
hardware stress fractures
has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us.
Hash table has woodworm
Having to manually track the satellite.
heavy gravity fluctuation, move computer to floor rapidly
High altitude condensation from U.S.A.F prototype aircraft has contaminated
the
High nuclear activity in your area.
high pressure system failure
Hot Java has gone cold
HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power
HTTPD Error 666 : BOFH was here
I
I'd love to help you -- it's just that the Boss won't let me near the computer.
I'm not sure. Try calling the Internet's head office -- it's in the book.
I'm sorry a pentium won't do, you need an SGI to connect with us.
improperly oriented keyboard
incompatible bit-registration operators
Incorrect time synchronization
Incorrectly configured static routes on the corerouters.
Increased sunspot activity.
Insert coin for new game
Interference between the keyboard and the chair.
Interference from lunar radiation
Interference from the Van Allen Belt.
Internet exceeded Luser level, please wait until a luser logs off before
internet is needed to catch the etherbunny
Internet outage
Internet shut down due to maintenance
interrupt configuration error
Ionization from the air-conditioning
IRQ dropout
IRQ-problems with the Un-Interruptible-Power-Supply
isn't working, do you?)
it has Intel Inside
It must have been the lightning storm we had (yesterday) (last week) (last
It was OK before you touched it.
It works the way the Wang did, what's the problem
it's an ID-10-T error
It's not plugged in.
It's not RFC-822 compliant.
It's stuck in the Web.
It's the InterNIC's fault.
It's those computer people in X {city of world}. They keep stuffing things up.
It's union rules. There's nothing we can do about it. Sorry.
J
Jan 9 16:41:27 huber su: 'su root' succeeded for .... on /dev/pts/1
Jupiter is aligned with Mars.
"Just pick up the phone and give modem connect sounds. ""Well you said we should
"
Just type 'mv * /dev/null'.
K
kernel panic: write-only-memory (/dev/wom0) capacity exceeded.
knot in cables caused data stream to become twisted and kinked
L
Lawn mower blade in your fan need sharpening
LBNC (luser brain not connected)
le0: no carrier: transceiver cable problem?
Lightning strikes.
"Little hamster in running wheel had coronary; waiting for replacement to be
"
Look, buddy: Windows 3.1 IS A General Protection Fault.
loop found in loop in redundant loopback
Lusers learning curve appears to be fractal
M
magnetic interference from money/credit cards
Mail server hit by UniSpammer.
Mailer-daemon is busy burning your message in hell.
Maintenance window broken
manager in the cable duct
Me no internet, only janitor, me just wax floors.
Melting hard drives
microelectronic Riemannian curved-space fault in write-only file system
Microsoft)
monitor resolution too high
monitor VLF leakage
month)
Mouse chewed through power cable
Mouse has out-of-cheese-error
multicasts on broken packets
My pony-tail hit the on/off switch on the power strip.
N
narco-net-trafficker
neatly removed. Do _not_ leave metal bits visible!
need to wrap system in aluminum foil to fix problem
nesting roaches shorted out the ether cable
Netscape has crashed
network down, IP packets delivered via UPS
Network failure - call NBC
network packets travelling uphill (use a carrier pigeon)
Neutrino overload on the nameserver
new guy cross-connected phone lines with ac power bus.
new management
"no ""any"" key on keyboard"
non-redundant fan failure
not approved by the FCC
Not enough interrupts
not enough memory, go get system upgrade
not properly grounded, please bury computer
not type any commands!!
NOTICE: alloc: /dev/null: filesystem full
O
Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.
old inkjet cartridges emanate barium-based fumes
one, your office is right over where the core is buried!
only available on a need to know basis
Only people with names beginning with 'A' are getting mail this week (a la
operation failed because: there is no message for this error (#1014)
Operators killed by year 2000 bug bite.
Operators killed when huge stack of backup tapes fell over.
operators on strike due to broken coffee machine
OS swapped to disk
Our ISP is having {switching,routing,SMDS,frame relay} problems
Our POP server was kidnapped by a weasel.
Out of cards on drive D:
out.
over the universities first nuclear research site? And wow, aren't you the lucky
overflow error in /dev/null
P
paradigm shift...without a clutch
parallel processors running perpendicular today
Party-bug in the Aloha protocol.
Password is too complex to decrypt
PCMCIA slave driver
PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)
Pentium FDIV bug
permission denied
piezo-electric interference
Plasma conduit breach
Plate voltage too low on demodulator tube
Please excuse me, I have to circuit an AC line through my head to get this
Please state the nature of the technical emergency
Plumber mistook routing panel for decorative wall fixture
Police are examining all internet packets in the search for a
poor power conditioning
popper unable to process jumbo kernel
positron router malfunction
POSIX compliance problem
Post-it Note Sludge leaked into the monitor.
Power Company having EMP problems with their reactor
Power company testing new voltage spike (creation) equipment
primary subnet mask. Turn off your computer for 9 days to avoid damaging it.
problem.
Processes running slowly due to weak power supply
Program load too heavy for processor to lift.
Proprietary Information.
pseudo-user on a pseudo-terminal
Q
quantum decoherence
Quantum dynamics are affecting the transistors
R
Radial Telemetry Infiltration
radiosity depletion
Recursive traversal of loopback mount points
Recursivity. Call back if it happens again.
Redundant ACLs.
refill it, care to contribute ?
Reformatting Page. Wait...
Repeated reboots of the system failed to solve problem
Robotic tape changer mistook operator's tie for a backup tape.
Root name servers corrupted.
Root nameservers are out of sync
root rot
Route flapping at the NAP.
routing problems on the neural net
RPC_PMAP_FAILURE
runaway cat on system.
Runt packets
S
Sales staff sold a product we don't offer.
Sand fleas eating the Internet cables
Satan did it
Scheduled global CPU outage
SCSI Chain overterminated
SCSI's too wide.
Second-system effect.
secretary plugged hairdryer into UPS
Secretary sent chain letter to all 5000 employees.
Server depressed, needs Prozac
short leg on process table
SIMM crosstalk.
Small animal kamikaze attack on power supplies
Smell from unhygienic janitorial staff wrecked the tape heads
Software uses US measurements, but the OS is in metric...
solar flares
Some one needed the powerstrip, so they pulled the switch plug.
Somebody ran the operating system through a spelling checker.
somebody was calculating pi on the server
Someone else stole your IP address, call the Internet detectives!
Someone has messed up the kernel pointers
Someone hooked the twisted pair wires into the answering machine.
Someone is broadcasting pygmy packets and the router doesn't know how to deal
Someone is standing on the ethernet cable, causing a kink in the cable
Someone thought The Big Red Button was a light switch.
Someone was smoking in the computer room and set off the halon systems.
Someone's tie is caught in the printer, and if anything else gets printed, he'll
sounds like a Windows problem, try calling Microsoft support
spaghetti cable cause packet failure
Stale file handle (next time use Tupperware(tm)!)
Standing room only on the bus.
static buildup
static from nylon underwear
static from plastic slide rules
"station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway"" Andrew S. Tannenbaum)"
sticktion
sticky bit has come loose
Sticky bits on disk.
stop bit received
Stray Alpha Particles from memory packaging caused Hard Memory Error on Server.
struck by the Good Times virus
Stubborn processes
suboptimal routing experience
supply will be coming next week.
Support staff hung over, send aspirin and come back LATER.
Suspicious pointer corrupted virtual machine
Swithin's day.
Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer.
Sysadmin didn't hear pager go off due to loud music from bar-room speakers.
Sysadmins busy fighting SPAM.
Sysadmins unavailable because they are in a meeting talking about why they are
system consumed all the paper for paging
system has been recalled
system needs to be rebooted
T
T-1's congested due to porn traffic to the news server.
tachyon emissions overloading the system
TCP/IP UDP alarm threshold is set too low.
techtonic stress
Telecommunications is downgrading.
Telecommunications is downshifting.
Telecommunications is upgrading.
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
Temporal anomaly
temporary routing anomaly
terrorist activities
Terrorists crashed an airplane into the server room, have to remove /bin/laden.
That function is not currently supported, but Bill Gates assures us it will
be
That would be because the software doesn't work.
"That's a great computer you have there; have you considered how it would work
as "
That's easy to fix, but I can't be bothered.
the AA battery in the wallclock sends magnetic interference
The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room
The ATM board has run out of 10 pound notes. We are having a whip round to
The Borg tried to assimilate your system. Resistance is futile.
the butane lighter causes the pincushioning
The cables are not the same length.
The co-locator cannot verify the frame-relay gateway to the ISDN server.
The computer fleetly, mouse and all.
The cord jumped over and hit the power switch.
The CPU has shifted, and become decentralized.
the curls in your keyboard cord are losing electricity.
the daemons! the daemons! the terrible daemons!
The data on your hard drive is out of balance.
The Dilithium Crystals need to be rotated.
The electrician didn't know what the yellow cable was so he yanked the ethernet
The electricity substation in the car park blew up.
The file system is full of it
The hardware bus needs a new token.
The Internet is being scanned for viruses.
The kernel license has expired
The keyboard isn't plugged in
The lines are all busy (busied out, that is -- why let them in to begin with?).
The mainframe needs to rest. It's getting old, you know.
The MGs ran out of gas.
The monitor is plugged into the serial port
The monitor needs another box of pixels.
The mouse escaped.
The new frame relay network hasn't bedded down the software loop transmitter
The POP server is out of Coke
the printer thinks its a router.
the real ttys became pseudo ttys and vice-versa.
The recent proliferation of Nuclear Testing
The ring needs another token
The rolling stones concert down the road caused a brown out
the router thinks its a printer.
The rubber band broke
The salesman drove over the CPU board.
The static electricity routing is acting up...
The Token fell out of the ring. Call us when you find it.
The UPS doesn't have a battery backup.
The UPS is on strike.
The Usenet news is out of date
The vendor put the bug there.
The vulcan-death-grip ping has been applied.
the xy axis in the trackball is coordinated with the summer solstice
There isn't any problem
those damn raccoons!
Too few computrons available.
Too many interrupts
Too many little pins on CPU confusing it, bend back and forth until 10-20% are
Too much radiation coming from the soil.
Traceroute says that there is a routing problem in the backbone. It's not our
Traffic jam on the Information Superhighway.
transient bus protocol violation
Trojan horse ran out of hay
turn of your computer, you do not want to cool down the Pentium Chip while he
Typo in the code
U
U.S. Postal Service
UBNC (user brain not connected)
unavailable so much.
undocumented feature.
Unfortunately we have run out of bits/bytes/whatever. Don't worry, the next
Unoptimized hard drive
UPS interrupted the server's power
user to computer ratio too high.
user to computer ration too low.
"User was distributing pornography on server; system seized by FBI."
users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....)
V
vapors from evaporating sticky-note adhesives
Vendor no longer supports the product
vi needs to be upgraded to vii
virus attack, luser responsible
Virus due to computers having unsafe sex.
Virus transmitted from computer to sysadmins.
W
waste water tank overflowed onto computer
We already sent around a notice about that.
We are a 100% Microsoft Shop.
We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortunately,
one
"We are Microsoft. What you are experiencing is not a problem; it is an "
We didn't pay the Internet bill and it's been cut off.
We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill.
we just switched to FDDI.
we just switched to Sprint.
We need a licensed electrician to replace the light bulbs in the computer room.
We only support a 1200 bps connection.
We only support a 28000 bps connection.
We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver
Webmasters kidnapped by evil cult.
Well fix that in the next (upgrade, update, patch release, service pack).
We're on Token Ring, and it looks like the token got loose.
We're out of slots on the server
We're upgrading /dev/null
we're waiting for [the phone company] to fix that line
We've picked COBOL as the language of choice.
We've run out of licenses
What office are you in? Oh, that one. Did you know that your building was built
"Windows 95 undocumented ""feature"""
with them.
work, take them out and put tin foil on the ends.
working as designed
Write-only-memory subsystem too slow for this machine. Contact your local
wrong polarity of neutron flow
Y
Yeah, yo mama dresses you funny and you need a mouse to delete files.
Yes, yes, its called a design limitation
yet.
You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish (from most tunefs man
You did wha... oh _dear_....
YOU HAVE AN I/O ERROR -> Incompetent Operator error
You must've hit the wrong any key.
You need to install an RTFM interface.
You need to upgrade your VESA local bus to a MasterCard local bus.
You put the disk in upside down.
Your cat tried to eat the mouse.
Your computer hasn't been returning all the bits it gets from the Internet.
Your computer's union contract is set to expire at midnight.
Your EMAIL is now being delivered by the USPS.
Your Flux Capacitor has gone bad.
your keyboard's space bar is generating spurious keycodes.
Your mail is being routed through Germany ... and they're censoring us.
Your modem doesn't speak English.
Your packets were eaten by the terminator
Your parity check is overdrawn and you're out of cache.
Your Pentium has a heating problem - try cooling it with ice cold water.(Do
not
your process is not ISO 9000 compliant
Your processor does not develop enough heat.
Your processor has processed too many instructions. Turn it off immediately,
do
Your processor has taken a ride to Heaven's Gate on the UFO behind Hale-Bopp's
Your/our computer(s) had suffered a memory leak, and we are waiting for them
to
You're out of memory
You've been infected by the Telescoping Hubble virus.
Z
Zombie processes detected, machine is haunted.
Zombie processes haunting the computer
