Critical Error

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What Does Critical Error Mean?

A critical error is a serious computer error that
forces the program to stop and it becomes impossible for the running program,
operating system or software to continue working normally. This error might
cause the computer to reboot or freeze.

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Techopedia Explains Critical Error

A critical error is an error that causes a program to abort. A critical error might occur in an operating system, a running application, program or software. In this process, the operation that was being performed is aborted, and data may be lost. This may even result in freezing or spontaneous rebooting of the computer.

A critical error can be due to causes such as:

  • An illegal instruction being attempted
  • A program attempting to perform something which is impossible
  • Invalid code being accessed

One of the most well-known critical errors in computing is the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) in Microsoft Windows operating systems.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.