VeganMilitia: ErrorMessages

One of the most critical parts of any piece of software is the error handling code. Most code does not properly check for errors, and when they do the error messages are rarely meaningful. I have been working with computers for several decades and have seen little real improvement in error messages. On this page I am collecting various error messages that are particularily bad.

This one came from ClearCase?:

 view_server.exe(4104): Error: Unable to create file "TEMP<vobxfer>": Permission denied.

This one just popped up on my Windows machine:

 The server is unreachable.
 Verify that the network is available and that the server application is running.

And another:

 DisMsgrBundle?.xml: The configuration registry key is invalid.
 This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.
 Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Another ClearCase? error:

 2007-10-16T07:46:15-06 vob_server(4531): Error: unable to set ownership of file c/cdft/19/11: Not owner

This one wins a prize for being informative... one day I got a popup (with no title) which said:

 An unknown error has occurred.

This one has to win the "quantity instead of quality" award. Had the error simply said "file blah not found" I would have known the problem:

 historyLogger:84  INFO - EXCEPTION CAUGHT: org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.
 CCException: error during execution command cleartool lshistory -recurse -fmt %Nd@@@%En@@@%Vn@@@%o@@@!%l@@@!%a@@@%m@@@%u@@@%Nc@@@\n, exception caught
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.executeCommand(CCProvider.java:244)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.buildCCModel(CCProvider.java:171)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.listFiles(CCProvider.java:116)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.listFiles(Main.java:158)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.run(Main.java:80)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.main(Main.java:49)
 Caused by: java.io.IOException: CreateProcess?: cleartool lshistory -recurse -fmt %Nd@@@%En@@@%Vn@@@%o@@@!%l@@@!%a@@@%m@@@%u@@@%Nc@@@\n error=267
        at java.lang.Win32Process.create(Native Method)
        at java.lang.Win32Process.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.Runtime.execInternal(Native Method)
        at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Unknown Source)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.common.Exec.exec(Exec.java:181)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.executeCommand(CCProvider.java:240)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.buildCCModel(CCProvider.java:171)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.ccprovider.CCProvider.listFiles(CCProvider.java:116)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.listFiles(Main.java:158)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.run(Main.java:80)
        at org.polarion.svnimporter.main.Main.main(Main.java:49)