Yellow Screen of Death

Any Microsoft Windows user would have definitely seen his computer crashing with a blue screen containing a cryptic error message as above. Such a screen has been termed as Screens of Death, as they indicate some serious problem in the Hardware/Software. Rebooting the system may restore to normalcy. But, even after rebooting, if the problem persists, the only solution is to reinstall the Operating System or fix the hardware.

Later, the Screens of Death were not only referred to the Operating Systems, but also to the applications being used. While browsing some websites, we would see a small, yellow triangle popping at the right bottom of the Status Bar in Internet Explorer (from Microsoft :-)). This is called as the Yellow Triangle of Death and it indicates a JavaScript error (Website developers would know the real pain of fixing such errors). When I view my blog, I get this error and didn't know to fix it.

Two days back, one of my colleagues asked me to check whether the salary has been credited or not. So, I visited the Axis Bank site and soon after clicking the Login button, I was taken to the below page. I was a bit shocked to see the URL pointing to localhost. This is called as the Yellow Screen of Death (unhandled errors in ASP.NET web applications). The next day, I checked the site and it was fixed. I am sure the entire maintenance team would have been taken to task.

I had a similar experience when Hutch was officially rebranded as Vodafone. Unfortunately, I didn't blog then and didn't take a screenshot.