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A crash, in the context of computing, is an event wherein the operating system or a computer application stops functioning properly. It mostly occurs when:
An application crash can result in an unexpected exit from the application, whereas a system crash can result in freezing of the computer.
A crash is also known as a system crash.
An application can crash for various reasons, including:
As a result of any of the above, an application is abruptly terminated by the operating system to prevent system instability.
During a system crash, the operating system sometimes can recover from the error by rebooting. However, crashes caused by bugs in device drivers, kernel-mode errors, malfunctioning hardware or hardware/software incompatibility may require a system update, reinstallation or even an upgrade. Otherwise, the problem may persist. In some cases, the screen turns blue and error messages are displayed on screen. This is known as the "blue screen of death" in Windows.
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