Comment

Comment on On the steam forums, there are over TWO THOUSAND PAGES of community questions about "disk write error".

Disk write error.

Almost like the error has something to do with writing to the disk.

It should provide more information, as to “which file”, “which drive”, and what caused the error like “not enough space” or “no rights to write” or whatever the hell it is. And maybe some other context depending on the circumstances. “Disk write error” is just too generic. It’s better than nothing, but the request and critique in this post is that it could and should be more detailed and helpful.

source

Sort:hotnew top

ReptilianCleric@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
In theory, I’m inclined to agree with you. But error handling in your code is not at all straightforward. Just successfully catching an error so the program can exit gracefully can be difficult. Classifying different error conditions and displaying an appropriate message is even worse.

Basically, the logs exist for exactly this purpose. Just how it works.

source
- anewfox@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Basically, the logs exist for exactly this purpose. Just how it works.
  
  it is wild for someone to say this immediately after saying “actually they can’t display the error because it’s too hard” and somehow not realize in the middle of typing how ridiculous it is trying to square those two claims.
  
  source
  - ReptilianCleric@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yes, and will outputting the log directly to screen help to make the error any less confiding?
    
    And writing code that includes robust error catching and handling is simple, then?
    
    source
    thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No one asks to output the naked log line. There are a few more information that could be presented in a more readable and useful manner in a message box. Error messages are meant to be helpful, not to annoy without knowing what happened.
    
    Even if you are right and the log contains the answer, why not trying to make more helpful Error messages? Does it hurt you?
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If they can log it, then they can show it in the message.
  
  source
  - ReptilianCleric@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    How often do you read log files…?
    
    Like, windows specifically stopped including the stack trace in the blue screen of death because of how rarely that proved to be necessary. And most log files are about as easy to parse, so…
    
    source
    thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Doesn’t matter. There is zero excuse for bad error messages.
    
    source
chillxjr@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
it does. in the logs.

source
- thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The error message should contain all the additions information, so that we don’t even need to parse and look into log files. There is no excuse for bad error messages.
  
  source