Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with error

I'm starting to think that its just me.....

anastasiav — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:39:36 -0800

Gmail: I've been getting the Gmail 502 Error that they said was resolved on Monday for almost a solid 24 hours now (24 hours without Gmail - argh!). Since there's nothing posted about it in Announcements and Alerts, I'm starting to wonder if the Gmail folks are unaware there is a problem. How do I contact Gmail about this given, that, you know, my only email is currently not working. Is there a "trouble report form" or some such thing somewhere that I'm not finding?

Why won't XCode let me select text?

designbot — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:50:11 -0800

What the deuce? Why can't I type in certain areas using XCode? I'm just getting started learning to program in Objective-C using XCode under Leopard, and I'm encountering a bizarre behavior. The I-beam cursor just doesn't work in some areas of my code.

Here's a sample:

//

//  main.m

//  prog1

//



#import 



int main(int argc, const char *argv[])

{

	int sum;

	

	// compute result

	sum = 25 + 37 - 19;

	

	// display results

	printf ("The answer is %i.\n", sum);

	

	return 0;

}

Clicking in most of the code works like you would expect; the I-beam starts blinking, and I can edit the text as I would like.

But if I click anywhere in the area indicated in italics, the I-beam just turns into an arrow cursor until I move the mouse, the blinking text cursor doesn't appear, and I can't edit the text. It is possible to position the cursor before or after the bold area and maneuver into it with the arrow keys.

What on earth is going on here?

show me the video!

Koko — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:45:49 -0800

Nine times out of ten when I follow a link to a YouTube video, I get the message, "We're sorry, this video is no longer available." What am I doing wrong? I know the video must be available, because people are discussing it and no one mentions it's been taken down. This happens to me whether it's an embedded video or I follow the link to YouTube's page. I'm using Windows Vista and IE, and the problem seemed to start after I installed Vista last month (never had the problem with IE & Windows XP), so I'm thinking it's a problem with my settings maybe? But then why do some videos play and others not? Anyone else get this problem? Help me to fix!

I owe taxes

Brandon1600 — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:28:55 -0800

(TaxErrorFilter) I just received a letter in the mail stating my 2006 tax return is flawed and now I owe about $3600 to the government. Is there any way to fight this? The letter states what I claimed on my return as taxes withheld by my employer is double than what they claimed they withheld. I checked my old W-2 and this is in fact true. I called the IRS agent and she said the tax software I used (free1040EZ.com) must have doubled what I put in. If the government knew that the numbers were different, why did they proceed anyway? Is their any way to dispute or at least reduce what I owe?

Ack I broke acrobat professional

special-k — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:24:01 -0800

I tried to update my Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and I broke something. Help me make it work again. I usually ignore Adobe update requests but for some unknown reason I clicked ok. It updated, asked for a restart. My spybot search and destroy asked if I would approve some new start up processes and again, being totally distracted, I said ok to some but not others. After the restart my Acrobat Professional 7.0 no longer works.

First I get "An internal error occurred"

Then I get "The instruction at 0x0408185f referenced memory at 0x38bdaac. The memory could not be read"

Googling both those error codes returns nothing. Under Program Files>Adobe>Acrobat 7.0>Setup>Acropro>ENU there is a file called acropro.exe.

I tried to repair my install and that didn't work either. The obvious solution would be to reinstall from a scratch but I don't have installation disks till the IT guy gets here on Monday.

What can I do in the meantime (I need to create and edit a bunch of pdfs this weekend).

Is there a corrupt folder I can delete to make this work?

I am on WinXP. Acrobat 7.0 (I don't know the sub-version)

obfuscate error

gnutron — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:00:22 -0800

Canon PowerShot got wet in a rainstorm. I can view pics, but I can't take pics. When switching to record mode, the viewfinder goes black and I get a small error message reading 'E24'. Does anyone know what this means or if it's fixable? Camera is out of warranty.

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available." YouTube error

LC — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:18:28 -0800

Does anyone else get this error message randomly when trying to play YouTube videos embedded on remote Web sites? The video is very much available if you go to the actual page on YouTube.com

I miss my porn

Brandon1600 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:10:57 -0800

(**HighAlert** TechQuestionoftheDay) So my laptop is not able to load windows and keeps giving me the blue screen of death with "system/system32/config/software." Please help. Oh man, I really did not need this to happen. I was on my laptop yesterday morning and recieved a windows update. I allowed it to restart and all it does is bring up the windows load screen then cycle to the blue screen and mentions something like "cannot load hive file (something, something) registry... dumping physical memory".Then it mentions something about the afore mentioned file path. Then it cycled back to the BIOS and gives me the option of starting up in the various safe modes or the last known configuration. I ran a quick hard drive diagnostic on the setup page and it it returned: (tests 1-7: failed). Not good. I have no idea what to do now. I am calling upon all the resident tech nerds on MeFi to help me in my time of need. The reward is one (1) internets. May the force be with you.

How can I get my college prof to admit he is wrong, and give me the marks I deserve?

Tachoh — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:52:15 -0800

College prof keeps marking my math tests incorrectly. What do I do? Heya Metafilter,

I am in community college now, planning on going to something a little more serious when I graduate this year.

I am getting a 99% in my math course, doing really well. Recently, however, my mark has taken a hit due to the fact that my math prof marked 2 questions that were correct as incorrect due to the fact that he does not fully understand the answer.

I tried explaining the answer to the question to him in class, but he does not like to be told he is wrong and went around the question. It was clear in his explaination to the class that he did not know how I arrived at the answer I did and said "well, what I do know is that you got it wrong"

Short of actually sitting this guy down and teaching him how to do these problems, how can I get the marks I deserve?

Has anyone else ever had this issue? Should I go to the dean? I really don't want to cause a scene or harm this prof in any way.

Please advise.

Does a reply-all really reply to all?

Baby_Balrog — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:09:13 -0800

How do bcc's work, exactly? I think I caught someone doing something bad. I received a particularly vociferous, nasty email today from a coworker. She accused me of all manner of villainy and inadequacy. She cc'd my boss and a couple of other people. When I "replied all" (with a sincere apology, an expression of confusion and an offer to meet in person to amend any wrongdoings) I received an SMTP error in reply, that my message could not be delivered to a particular address.
BUT - the particular address that the message could not be delivered to is the email address of a former employee, one who was asked to resign over some misconduct, and was not present in the original list of individuals who were cc'd.

My question is this, I guess: When you "reply all" does it include anyone bcc'd on the original email? If so, did the smtp error reveal the person who was bcc'd? Here is the error it returned to me (with relevant email addresses redacted - the email address of the former employee is the earthlink address):

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim).

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

[redacted]@earthlink.net
SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO::
host mx3.earthlink.net [209.86.93.228]: 550 [redacted]@earthlink.net...User unknown

if my coworker is bcc'ing this former employee regarding business issues, this would be a very, very unethical thing.

Why can't we log into our google accounts from work?

taumeson — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:59:15 -0800

Why can't I get to the Google login page? From work we can't get to gmail.com or the Google Analytics Sign up page, for instance. If I use Anonymizer, I'm able to get in just fine, and because my cookie is set then afterwords it works fine, but if anybody else wants to get to Google from their computers we get "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

We do have a spam-blocking firewall. Could that be it?

A coffee cup refresh icon?

clearly — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:52:58 -0800

Mac question. In Safari, A coffee cup icon with two curved arrows comes up when I can't see a certain type of image (kind of like a refresh icon with a coffee cup in the middle). In Firefox they show up as a grey outlined box with a red X on the left hand side. What am I missing here? Do I need to download something to be able to see these images? Are these images nonexistent?

Help!

Dull Windows XP Question

wittgenstein — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:10:07 -0800

"Windows needs to close" - filter: The computer now seems to present that "windows needs to close" message when I try to close any window containing a web page that had video or audio on it. It didn't used to do this. I would like to fix this. This is Windows XP, not Vista. I know many here will suggest I switch to Firefox, but I share this computer with Mrs. W and I don't think she would like the change. I have cleaned the registry (not that that would have anything to do with this problem; it's just one of the things I know how to do.) I regularly clear the internet history and the temporary files, and have defagged recently. The recycle bin is also clear.

I do have realplayer installed on this computer along with Windows media player. Could that have anything to do with it?

Clearly I'm grasping at straws but I trust the hive mind to be able to tell me what to do (or what free utility I can download online that will fix this.)

Thanks.

Make w.bloggar play nice with Wordpress categories?

freudenschade — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:03:40 -0800

New blog at Wordpress.com. Would like to use w.bloggar as my desktop editor for posts. Everything's configured properly and looking great, except for this error I get when I start up w.bloggar: "w.bloggar: 401 / Your blog server returned the following error message: / Sorry, you must be able to edit posts on this blog in order to view categories." I'm sure there's a simple explanation, but googling and FAQ digging turn up nothing. What gives?

Photoshop cannot open cr2 and jpg files in a single folder on an external harddrive

msbrauer — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:57:42 -0800

I can no longer open a number of raw and jpg files in a single folder on an external harddrive. What's going on? Is my harddrive about to die? Between some time last night and sometime this morning, a folder of pictures on my external harddrive has become almost entirely unusable. I'm using photoshop cs2 on windows xp.

The pictures are all .cr2 raw files from a canon 5d digital camera. My workflow involves tagging and color coding the pictures I want to tone and edit, and once I'm done with the editing, saving a new jpg with the same filename as the original with an additional identifier that it's an edited version. I spent a little while working on the folder (toning in photoshop and captioning in photo mechanic) and then left the harddrive alone and turned off for the night.

When I opened the folder in photomechanic today, a majority but not all of the files (both the cr2's and the jpg's) would not display. When I open the files in photoshop cs2, I get errors. For the cr2 files, photoshop says "could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document." For the jpg's: "could not complete your request because an unknown or invalid JPEG marker type is found."

Some jpeg's and cr2's in the folder work, and as near as I can tell, all other jpeg's and cr2's on the drive open without a hitch, as well. As such, I don't think this is not a problem related to my raw plugin. In some cases, the cr2 opens, but the edited version, a jpg, does not open.

There's a possibility that, last night, while working on the offending files, the drive quit responding (could not do the "safely remove hardware" thing) and had to be restarted.

Though I have backups of these files on dvd's, I'm still concerned. Is this a larger problem with my harddrive? Is it only a problem with these particular files that won't crop up elsewhere on the drive or my computer?

Is there a way to fix the offending files?

How can I connect to my university's VPN network?

jordanian2 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:53:32 -0800

I'm trying to connect to my university's wireless network with VPN. I keep getting a 619 or 721 error. This is with a new laptop that has Windows XP Pro SP3 on it. How can I fix this problem?

making flippy floppy

sgt.serenity — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:56:56 -0800

My Computer detects a floppy drive when there isnt one installed ......... Hi i'm running windows xp home - i have one sata drive and one scsi drive ( i think its called that - the older version of hard drive) i also have a cd/dvd.

what happens is :

the computer detects both hard drives ok but it detects the cd/dvd player without giving you access it says "please insert a cd" without letting you in, if theres something in there , it deosnt see it - it also detects a floppy disk drive, when lo and behold theres no physical floppy disk drive there at all.

I'm looking to get rid of the floppy and get the cd/dvd working - i've tried removing it in device manager and also booting without the sata hard drive.

404 Not Found

lou — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:40:56 -0800

Why are the 404 pages on my server broken?! I get a 500 Internal Server Error instead. Link to my .htaccess inside. Here's my webpage.

Here's what happens when you go to a page that doesn't exist.

But I get an Internal Server Error instead!

Now, I'm suspecting that the problem lies in my .htaccess file, but I can't be certain. I can't link directly to it, because you get the 403 Forbidden page, properly. So here's the text file version of its exact contents.

Any suggestions? Anything I'm overlooking??

Firefox Frozen

crapples — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:56:40 -0800

Computer geniuses of all stripes: What the heck happened?? I hit the back button in Firefox, using OSX 10.4.11, and I got this page!. I can't force quit Firefox, I can't shut down the computer (it times out), and I can't access the window that's behind the one shown in the picture!! Of course I could 'hard' reset the computer - but my questions are these.... 1 - Is there any way to get Firefox to close that I haven't thought of so I can avoid a hard reset?

2 - Why on earth did this happen?

Thanks for your help.

How to get scrollwheel-clicking to open links in a new tab in Firefox?

ruwan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:30:21 -0800

The scrollwheel-click has suddenly stopped working in Firefox. I don't recall making any changes in preferences, but all of a sudden, what used to open up links in new tabs, no longer does so. Instead wheel-clicking on a link does nothing. Any idea how to fix this problem? I feel like I'm browsing with one less finger! (Mac OSX.4.11, Firefox 2.0.0.11, Safari is unaffected by the problem.) I searched google and AskMe, both of which suggested changing settings in about:config, but I was unable to successfully fiddle around with this to get it working.

Custom Page Cannot Be Displayed Error

linklog — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:39:56 -0800

I know you can create custom error pages (via htaccess) for specific sites but is there a way to create a custom 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' page on the browser side with Explorer? I was thinking it might be nice to include a link to google cache of the page or perhaps automatically redirect Explorer to that page.

How can I accurately determine which drive is actually failing?

Ziggy Zaga — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:59:50 -0800

One of my hard drives threw a SMART error last night, but the symptoms are inconsistent with the self-diagnosis. What is the best way to do further testing? Background: My computer has worked fine for years. I have not installed any hardware in just as long, and the last program I installed a few weeks ago has worked fine ever since.

Specs:
AMD Athlon 3000+
3 GB RAM
2 HDDs of different sizes (one Seagate, one Maxtor)
GeForce 6600 video card (something like that)

Symptoms: I was playing Oblivion last night and after about half an hour I started experiencing very erratic pauses. It wasn't the regular bouts of slowdown I experience as the result of running this game on an underpowered PC, where the sound keeps playing and the video freezes temporarily-- in this case, both sound and picture freeze for 3 seconds, then continue. This problem extends into Windows as well. I restart the computer and it works fine for another half hour, then problem repeats. Eventually the game freezes altogether so I do a hard reset.

Prognosis: Here's where things get weird. As mentioned above, I have 2 drives. Oblivion is installed on the master drive. When the computer restarts, BIOS informs me that the secondary slave drive is failing. I shut the computer off immediately and have not powered on since. Perhaps it doesn't matter, but it seems odd to me that a drive that shouldn't even be actively used is causing all these hangups. The drive is not heavily used otherwise, and I believe it is even the newer of the two.

Both drives are on the same IDE cable; one is set to master, one is set to slave (as should be). Yet the slave drive supposedly threw the error. I have not changed the jumpers since installing the drives.

Stranger still is the fact that I've been running HDD Health and all this time that second drive has had a TEC well into the future (albeit with a 50% accuracy rate).

Inquiry: I've been burned before by ignoring SMART warnings, so I'm not taking any chances this time. I intend to back up the most important data from both drives to an external drive and relegate the problematic drive to one of my non-critical lab machines.

But the question remains...

How can I accurately determine which of the drives is actually failing? I don't entirely trust SMART's diagnosis. Are there any utilities I can run to do more in-depth testing than HDD Health?

Thanks

You don't call retarded people retards. it's bad taste. You call your friends retards when they're acting retarded.

kidsleepy — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:39:58 -0800

Why is my Gmail being retarded?! I keep getting disconnected from Gmail, over and over. It's like Gmail has the hiccups. I keep getting the "We're experiencing technical difficulties and you have been temporarily logged out of Chat." I'm also getting the "Oops" message when trying to send emails. I have to try six or seven times to get one out. This has been going on since yesterday.

I'm also getting hiccups in Google Reader, same "Oops" message, and not all of my feeds are getting marked as read. What the heck?

What did I do now?

EatTheWeak — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:38:22 -0800

I could use some help diagnosing a system crash, stabilizing my machine and determining how freaked out I should be. My computer did a weird thing this morning, and my usual tech support resource (Google) isn't turning up much to help me diagnosis it. I hate to once more drag AskMe into the long squabble between my computer and I, but here goes ..

AVG 2.0 ghz
ASUS ABN-E series motherboard (socket 939)
Windows XP, service pack 2

When I turned it on this morning, it hung up on the BIOS at the ACPI Controller, at IRQ 9. Resetting it was no help. After a couple tries, I opened my optical drive to find a blank CD i'd forgotten about. With this, windows promptly booted.

When it got to the desktop, a "Windows has just recovered from a serious error" message waiting for me.

It had this code -
BCCode: 100000050 BCPI: E3E5B660 BCP2: 00000000 BCP3: BFA1CBB6 BCP4: 00000001

And wanted to tell Microsoft about two files in folder called "temp" in the local settings directory of My Documents

\LOCALS\tEMP\WERF0C0DIRE00\Mini101307-01. and
\LOCALS\tEMP\WERF0C0DIRE00\sysdata.xml

Event viewer had noticed the booting error, and gave it ID 1003 and Category: (102) The string above was repeated in event viewer.

It also had an error from when I shut down the night before - System restore had encountered an unexpected error when reading a compressed file on my desktop, and "would no longer monitor the volume" - Event ID 1, category none

I'm wondering if I'd forgotten to change back off of "boot from disk" since the last time i had to do so, and this whole mess is just on account of that blank disk. But I swear I've started up with non-windows disks in the drive w/o such calamity. I'm tempted to restart and see if it goes normal this time, or to run Scandisk, but rebooting went so badly last time ...

So I'm hoping a Mefite much smarter than I could be of help in diagnosing all this scariness. Indeed, in helping me determine if this is all that scary at all. Windows seems pretty concerned, but I never know how to gauge Xp's reactions.

Thank you so much.

vconvert.net hates my macbook

pompomtom — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:53:06 -0800

vconvert.net hates my macbook. Is it just me? Attempting to download a converted video from the otherwise-cool vconvert.net gives me this error if I do it with my macbook. It doesn't matter where I try to save the file, and the filename it gives me is not the filename which would be used had it worked (ordinarily 'vconvert.mp4', iirc). On WinXP or Ubuntu Studio I have no such problem. Is this just me? Does anyone know a fix?