fatal error
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fatal error
[¦fād·əl ′er·ər] (computer science)
An error in a computer program which causes running of the program to be terminated.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
fatal error
(programming, operating system)Any error which causes
abrupt termination of the program. The program may be
terminated either by itself or by the operating system (a
"fatal exception"). In the former instance, the program
contains code which catches the error and, as a result,
returns to the operating system or calls an operating system
service to terminate the program.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
fatal error
A condition that halts processing due to faulty hardware, program bugs, read errors or other anomalies. If you get a fatal error, you generally cannot recover from it, because the operating system has encountered a condition it cannot resolve. Typically, buggy applications cause fatal errors (fatal exception errors), and the computer locks up. In most cases, all data that you have changed that has not yet been saved to disk is lost.There is no rule of thumb with fatal errors. You may never get one again, or it may manifest until you fix the problem. If you get a fatal error after just adding a new peripheral or installing a new software package, remove or uninstall it and try again.
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