Fatal exception error

{{short description|Error that causes a program to abort}}

{{Distinguish|fatal system error}}

In computing, a fatal exception error or fatal error is an error that causes a program to abort 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{{cite web|url=http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/fatal_error.html|title=Fatal error|date=September 1996|publisher=Webopedia|access-date=2010-10-31|archive-date=2018-11-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181122012810/https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/fatal_error.html|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/stop_error.html|title=Stop error|date=31 July 2003|publisher=Webopedia|access-date=31 October 2010|archive-date=23 July 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040723075244/http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/stop_error.html|url-status=live}} (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.

==References==

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