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Tech Tip: Terminology for technical problems
PRODUCT: 4D | VERSION: 12.1 | PLATFORM: Mac & Win
Published On: February 4, 2011

The following list can be helpful when trying to fully understand the extent of a technical problem:

Crash: The 4D application crashed. It disappears right away. In general a system dialog asking to send a log or notifying you of an error is displayed.

Quit: The 4D application quits. It could have crashed without any message or it just quit as requested by someone (not always by you) or some code.

Freeze: The 4D application (and operating system) froze. This means that nothing works anymore. You can no longer move the mouse, Num locks and Caps lock do not even work anymore. A hard reboot is required.

Not Responding: The 4D application does not respond anymore. You can move the mouse, but nothing happens within 4D. No response after selecting a 4D menu item or a click. Usually, redraws are no longer working. You did not crash. It's like running in an infinite loop with no way to escape. This is sometimes referred to as a hang or a hung app. It is interesting to note in these situation whether or not the 4D process is showing activity in the OS tools (Activity Monitor on Mac and Task Manager on Windows). In general the application must be force quit by the system to recover.

Stuck: I'm stuck. This means that I cannot continue my work because something prevents me from going further. For example, a modal dialog prevents me from clicking on a button from another dialog. Usually, the modal dialog will display a non modal dialog and you cannot click anywhere because of that. You did not crash, but you cannot continue and have no way to escape. This can also mean that you would have to kill the application (end the task) to continue.

Being stuck does not mean that you crashed as well as not responding does not mean that you froze. Using the appropriate verbs and terms when describing a problem can greatly reduce the time it takes to narrow down an issue.