Screen of death

In many computer operating systems a special type of error message will display onscreen when the system has experienced a fatal error. Computer users have dubbed these messages screens of death as they typically result in unsaved work being lost and often indicate serious problems with the system's hardware or software. Screens of death are usually the result of a kernel panic, although the terms are frequently used interchangeably. Most screens of death are displayed on an even background color with a message advising the user to restart the computer.

Notable screens of death

Linux kernel panic.

A Blue Screen of Death from a Windows 98/Windows 98SE/Windows ME operating system, indicating the occurrence of a serious error.

A sad Mac showing an illegal instruction occurred

A bomb icon from System 7 era

A red screen of death when booting Windows Longhorn (build 5048)

A purple screen of death in VMWare ESX Server 3

• The Blue Screen of Death (also called BSOD, BAD for Blue And Dead, stop error, or bluescreen) is a common name for a screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating system when a system error occurs. At times a Red Screen of Death (RSoD) may appear, as seen on the Windows 2008 server and a few beta builds of Windows, such as Memphis or Longhorn. It defines very critical hardware errors or boot errors.
• The Black Screen of Death is usually one of four things: a failure mode of Microsoft Windows 3.x, the screen displayed by the OS/2 operating system in the event of either a system error from which it cannot recover or a "hard" error in a program running in "full screen" mode (the former being a serious system failure but the latter being a less serious application failure), the Nintendo Wii's non-recoverable brick screen, or the Linux Black Screen of Death. Later versions of the Xbox 360s E74 error are also considered a Black Screen of Death.
• The Red Screen of Death is used in some game consoles and in early beta versions of Windows Vista. It also appears in recent versions of Lotus Notes, but does not appear full-screen. Such screens are bright red boxes with black borders.
• The Purple Screen of Death is used by VMware ESX Server, a server virtualization product by VMware, Inc. It is displayed in the event of a fatal kernel error. The screen provides error codes that can be used for debugging purposes.
• Several different operating systems and BIOSes may display a White Screen of Death for different types of failure.
• A kernel panic is used primarily by Unix and Unix-like operating systems: the Unix equivalent of Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death. It is used to describe a fatal error from which the operating system cannot recover.
• A Sad Mac is an iconic symbol used by older-generation Apple Macintosh computers, starting with the original 128K Macintosh, to indicate a severe hardware or software problem that prevented startup from occurring successfully. A similar symbol exists for the iPod.
• The Bomb icon is a symbol that was displayed when a "classic" Macintosh operating system (pre-Mac OS X) program had an application crash.
• The Row of Bombs screen is used on TOS-based systems to indicate a critical system error.
• Guru Meditation is the name of the error that occurred on early versions of the Amiga home computers when they crashed.

Other screens of death

The following refers to screens of death that are not based upon computer operating systems and appear instead in other media.

• White Screen of Death
• The Green Screen of Death occurs in TiVo DVRs and in the Xbox 360. The former is used to signify a (usually recoverable) error, which is shown while a TiVo attempts to repair the data contents of its hard drive, while the latter is used to signify an E74 error (early versions only). It is also used in top-loading versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System when a cartridge will not load (as compared to the front-loading version, where a grey screen will show instead).
• The Yellow Screen of Death occurs when an ASP.NET web application encounters a problem and crashes. It is also used to refer to an error in the parsing of an XML document in a web browser.
• The Grey Screen of Death sometimes occurs in the front-loading Nintendo Entertainment System when a cartridge will not load (as compared to the top-loading version, where a green screen shows instead). The GSOD is usually caused by old or worn-out security pins, designed to prevent unlicensed or pirated games from playing.

See also

• Xbox 360 technical problems
• Kill screen
• Spinning wait cursor
• Xscreensaver