Fatal exception error
Error that causes a program to abort
In computing, a fatal exception error or fatal error is an error that causes a program to abort (ABEND) and may therefore return the user to the operating system. When this happens, data that the program was processing may be lost. A fatal error is usually distinguished from a fatal system error (colloquially referred to in the MS Windows operating systems by the error message it produces as a "blue screen of death"). A fatal error occurs typically in any of the following cases:
- An illegal instruction has been attempted
- Invalid data or code has been accessed
- An operation is not allowed in the current ring or CPU mode
- A program attempts to divide by zero (only for integers; with the IEEE floating point standard, this creates an infinity instead).
In some systems, such as macOS and Microsoft Windows, a fatal error causes the operating system to create a log entry or to save an image (core dump) of the process.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Fatal exception error”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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