Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
Critical Error
Definition - 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.
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.
