Larry Osterman's WebLog

That doesn't look like a crash ... It seems like -
---------------------------------
Update (NOD32)
Server connection Failure
Tamam (Okay in Turkish)
---------------------------------

That's just NOD32 Anti-Virus http://nod32.softwaresecuritysolutions.com/ thinking that it's important enough to present that dialog to the user while he is watching TV :)

Larry,

First of all, thanks for all the great work...I'm a fan. :)

Second, we see shots like this all the time.  Thankfully, they include BSOD's less and less these days.  Nonetheless, they're common enough that maybe there's a common use case where error messages like this might be better suppressed if there is a better thing to do.  Do you have any thoughts?  Comments?

I've thought of making sure my camera was available to take "Blue Screen of Death" photos, but I never seem to have it handy.  My two favourites were:

At Fort Lauderdale (FL) Airport, behind the Delta counters, I once saw the row of flat-panel monitors displaying:
Delta-logo / Delta-logo / Delta-logo / BSoD / Delta-logo / ...

And once, when I was in the NYC subway system, one of the MetroCard vending machines displayed the BSoD.

OK, OK... we're too easily amused.

A service was launched for paying bus tickets and recharging bus cards through mobile phones in Málaga (Spain) two years ago. This service is run by the EMT, the Málaga Transport Company, which manages city bus routes. Apart from the ordinary ticket, a pre-paid contactless smart card can be used to pay bus trips. In order to recharge a card through this system, a code must be dialed on the phone. Once the request is accepted, one has to insert the card into a "recharge point" (there is almost a dozen all over the city) and confirm the operation. Then, the card will be charged as either a Multitravel (a given number of trips) or Temporary ticket (unlimited trips for a month). Also, bus cards can be acquired and charged at some kiosks, tobacco shops, stationery shops and the EMT Customer Service Center.

Once I saw an application crash. The screen normally reads in Spanish: "Information and recharge point - EMT cards - Insert card" Then, appears the dreaded Windows NT-style application error window, "SireEMTSAM.exe - Application error, the instruction at 0x77fca??? referenced memory at address 0x00000001. Memory could not be ???." (The window appears clipped because the screen size is smaller than the system's screen resolution.)

This is an image of the crash:
http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200602201802fm3.jpg

This is the aspect of the recharge point:
http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200602201809lf6.jpg

I took these photos with my mobile phone. The second one is a bit blurred. I saw a Windows 2000-style blue screen with the STOP code 0x7A (KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR), too. I couldn't photograph it, however.

I think the engineers who built this system don't find those faults funny at all. Well, most faults are "solved" with a simple reboot. :-)

Barry Leiba: This is why cameraphones are so great, you're always carrying a camera!

I took this one with my phone at the Copenhagen airport:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8317/dsc00910vz1.jpg
It's as if it's a free advertising point for Microsoft :)

Friday, July 21, 2006 11:29 PM by Ramon Sola [MVP Windows - Shell/User]
> I think the engineers who built this system don't find those
> faults funny at all.

At least one, who built part of the system, sure seems to.  I thank that engineer very much for starting this thread in his blog.

Friday, July 21, 2006 11:33 PM by LarryOsterman
> I got a non trivial amount of grief from my family for taking
> that picture

Geez, of all the places to get grief from over capturing and reporting a bug.

When I went to the millenium dome in London for the millenium exhibition there was one exhibit which was a room full of trees with lights, and low pedestals with touch screen monitors as the top surface. Each and every monitor was showing a BSOD.

Those monitors are new, I don't remember them being there 2 years ago when I was in Istanbul.

Anyway, at least TPTB in Turkey were fairly quick about it. Here in Leiden one of the departure times monitors at the train station was stuck on a BSOD for over two months! I looked up the STOP error code it displayed, I don't remember what it was exactly but it seems they had faulty RAM.

Interesting that the "OK" is locali[sz]ed, but the message isn't.  Guess they're using the Turkish version of Windows, but a US-English version of NOD32.

I'm surprised they didn't configure NOD32 for silent mode and use the administration console to log and monitor errors. As for not having heard of NOD32 before... I worked at MS for 12+ years before joining ESET. NOD32 is one of the scanners that checks all of the Windows builds (and all other MS software) for viruses prior to release. I used to run the virus checking system at MS.

That message appears when the machine can not reach the servers to update. This is due to a firewall blocking the traffic or the machine is disconected from the Internet. Rumor mill has it that NOD32 Anti Virus is also used in the labs at Microsoft.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 7:21 PM by Randy Abrams
> NOD32 is one of the scanners that checks all of the Windows
> builds (and all other MS software) for viruses prior to release.

Oooops.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323302/