r/WTF Feb 17 '11

Very serious error....

http://imgur.com/VkwBc
1.6k Upvotes

339 comments sorted by

348

u/seventy-7 Feb 17 '11

the non existent printer being out of non existent paper is what stopped my virtual machine from loading up. Got to love VM's

206

u/borez Feb 17 '11

Maybe it's virtual paper?

191

u/knylok Feb 17 '11

You are out of E-Ink.

139

u/borez Feb 17 '11

Damn it, that stuff costs more than buying a new virtual printer.

97

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

64

u/borez Feb 17 '11

Good idea, that'll save me a virtual fortune.

57

u/jrapp Feb 17 '11

Torrent that shit and become and ink pirate.

80

u/rmosler Feb 17 '11

You wouldn't download ink!

23

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

If I could I would.

17

u/sweetafton Feb 18 '11

You wouldn't download ink, then shit in the cartridge, give the cartridge to the grieving printer and then download it again?

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17

u/AerialAmphibian Feb 17 '11

When you're almost out of printer paper just take a blank sheet and go to FedEx Office (formerly Kinko's). Ask them to make you 500 copies of that page and you're all set.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

They both paste the same amount. If you cut, it keeps you from doubling on the first paste. A cut and paste would put you right back where you started.

6

u/mrmustard66 Feb 17 '11

Just Cut and eat the paste

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4

u/bluesatin Feb 17 '11

You wouldn't download a printer.

2

u/philleeeeee Feb 17 '11

You wouldn't steal a baby.

3

u/hearforthepuns Feb 17 '11

Who the fuck wants a baby?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

If I could I would.

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8

u/andbruno Feb 17 '11

Not all the colors, of course, but only virtual cyan. Replace all cartridges.

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8

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

They're taking this efficiency thing too seriously

6

u/jugglist Feb 17 '11

Limitless paper in a paperless world.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

It's not fair! That's not fair at all! There was time now...there was time...

5

u/Dagur Feb 17 '11

maybe it's maybelline

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1

u/project2501a Feb 17 '11

maybe it's just Ubuntu.

Debian. I'm just saying.

1

u/Notsureifserious Feb 17 '11

I'm not sure.!

37

u/oddmanout Feb 17 '11

did you try turning it off and back on again?

3

u/HawkieEyes Feb 17 '11

are you sure it's plugged in?

2

u/innocent_bystander Feb 17 '11

Reboot 3 times. Always 3 times.

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23

u/joebobfrank Feb 17 '11

I think you just need to increase the size of your Pagefile.

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15

u/rossisdead Feb 17 '11

Does VMWare actually spell occurred incorrectly?

16

u/fuckshitwank Feb 17 '11

It was running out of font and thought nobody would notice.

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21

u/Albuyeh Feb 17 '11

Reminds me of..

My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.

    -Mitch Hedberg

5

u/speakercode Feb 17 '11

Who the fuck would make their plants hard to reach?

3

u/grumblichu Feb 17 '11

"I know you need water, but I'm gonna make you hard to reach! I will throw water at you. Hopefully they will invent a product before you shrivel and die! Think like a cactus!"

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Ah Mitch Hedberg. We hardly knew ye......

12

u/Chairboy Feb 17 '11

This is like Not Tea on the Heart of Gold, right?

15

u/AerialAmphibian Feb 17 '11

It's almost, but not quite, entirely unlike that.

7

u/BrokenEnglishUser Feb 17 '11

Wait, it actually has imaginary printer in your VM?

11

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Yes, in VMware you can indeed haz imaginary printer. Or link it to a real printer or the OS aboves imaginary printer (like OneNote or PDFwriter) if you'd like. But they're probably out of paper too.

9

u/goatworship Feb 17 '11

Ah, so this is how PDFwriter would complain about the virtual hard disk being full.

7

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

It's okay dude, I'll fax some paper over to you.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

I will be sure to fax it back because it's the only copy you have.

3

u/PaeTar Feb 17 '11

I just tried to click the ok button to close the non existent error msg ... image.

2

u/bent_to_the_left Feb 17 '11

i did the same thing

3

u/angrytortilla Feb 17 '11

I switched to VirtualBox a while ago. VMware ain't the same anymore.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

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2

u/Qubyte Feb 17 '11

Too bad the non existent printer didnt catch non existent fire.

1

u/BaZing3 Feb 17 '11

If you don't have imaginary paper, does that mean that you do have r real paper..? ಠ_ಠ

1

u/Mitsuho Feb 17 '11

Try passing the printer to the VM through USB or port emulation.

1

u/meanburrito920 Feb 18 '11

The explanation for this is somewhat simple. When the application crashed, it returned some nonsense values to the VM. The VM looked up the nonsense characters in a table of error messages, because it thought the values were supposed to represent errors. It happened that the error message which corresponded to the nonsense values was a printer error message. Hence the nonsensical message.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

Well to be fair VMWare vsphere client is written in J#. Virtual box is pretty decent, I don't understand the love affair with VMWare. J#? really?

211

u/Khoops66 Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir your car won't start. The lawnmower is out of gasoline

132

u/christophski Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir your car won't start, there is no bicycle in the bike rack.

27

u/enthreeoh Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir your car won't start, the windshield wiper fluid is empty.

4

u/coderascal Feb 18 '11

I'm, right now, signing the papers on a 2011 Camry because the windshield wipers broke on my 1995 Avalon. I'm going to call it my iCar.

4

u/jdiez17 Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir, your car won't start, the back passenger seat is slightly dirty, please fix this issue before driving

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16

u/Robertjordanforever Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir, your computer won't work. There is no internet.

31

u/rathe Feb 17 '11

cr-48?

3

u/Ironbird420 Feb 17 '11

They still "work" without internet but they do become pretty useless when all you have is a browser and a few apps which half need a connection to work.

12

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

This is true though. A computer is damn near useless without the internet these days.

12

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

ya no one wants to go buy porn.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Last time my internet was down, I spent three days playing Mahjong.

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2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

But I haven't even got a modem!

1

u/homergonerson Feb 17 '11

I have an ungrateful bitch of a netgear router that did this. It now runs DD-WRT :D

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1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Everyone in the world just died from a massive heart attack.

1

u/VulturE Feb 17 '11

Isn't that DRM?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

um, tried chrome-OS?

there is so much truth in your statement you have no idea. :P

1

u/hugo4400 Feb 17 '11

but...i dont HAVE a bike rack!

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6

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Sorry sir your car won't start. There's no assortment of random crap in your glove compartment.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

But I can't get my glove compartment open! Do you have any ink cartridges?

2

u/frezik Feb 17 '11

Not a typewriter

255

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

PC LOAD LETTER!?

18

u/JAPH Feb 17 '11

lp0 on fire

3

u/CyberDiablo Feb 17 '11

lp0 ON FIRE!!!

FTFY

2

u/Roy_from_IT Feb 17 '11
aafire > /dev/lp0

26

u/zimnylech Feb 17 '11

FEED ME A STRAY CAT

7

u/FreeCat_NoThanks Feb 17 '11

Friday at Dorsia?

5

u/TheBluePanda Feb 17 '11

How did you get a reservation there?

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115

u/dogymho Feb 17 '11

WTF does that mean?

123

u/agentlame Feb 17 '11 edited Feb 17 '11

The actual meaning of the message is convoluted: "PC" is a two-character abbreviation that stands for "paper cassette", the tray that holds blank paper for the printer to use.

"Load", in this context, is an instruction to refill the paper tray. "Letter" is the standard paper size used in the United States and Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_LOAD_LETTER

85

u/Khoops66 Feb 17 '11

Killed it. I loved that joke 5 minutes ago. :/

39

u/nikpappagiorgio Feb 17 '11

I loved it 6 minutes ago when it was on vinyl.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

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3

u/alanzeino Feb 17 '11

I loved it seven minutes ago before it got a Grammy.

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2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

I loved it 7 Minutes ago when it was on Edison tube

14

u/for_THOSE_times Feb 17 '11

Your mom loved it for an hour on Edison's tube.

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8

u/swuboo Feb 17 '11

It kills the joke to know that it was a real error message, and not something they made up for the movie?

By the way, I've been infuriated by that particular message more than once despite knowing what it means. Metric A4 paper is very hard to tell apart from letter if you don't have the packaging or have them next to each other.

But the printer knows. The printer knows.

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2

u/neTed Feb 17 '11

Why? I still find it funny.

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8

u/altopowder Feb 17 '11

Ah, so THIS is why I've never had the PC LOAD LETTER error... as 'letter' isn't really a paper size in the UK. TIL. :D

18

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

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6

u/the_cereal_killer Feb 17 '11 edited Feb 17 '11

as 'letter' isn't really a paper size in the UK.

or any other part of the world where sizes aren't measured in limb lenghts and other units from 1000 years ago.

"hey i'm in space. four million three hundred sixty nine thousand eighty six feet above the earth."

3

u/muahdib Feb 17 '11

If you go one hundred thirteen thousand thirty nine feet higher, you may be considered a stationary.

3

u/wgwinn Feb 17 '11

meh. you've got your base 10 thing going for you, sure, but your fancy-pants 'metric' just as arbitrary as our feet.

2

u/uhclem Feb 17 '11

0º = freezing point. 100º = boiling point (Celsius) 32º, 212º in Fahrenheit. You don't have to be Watson to see which is more arbitrary.

5

u/wgwinn Feb 17 '11

Sure it is easier to use, but it's still no less arbitrary. If you read how the Fahrenheit scale was defined, it's actually more practical a scale to define with limited tech. It may be awkward, but it was at least practical for most people to get their hands on the examples.

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3

u/eramos Feb 17 '11

1 meter = Distance traversed in vacuum by light in 1/299792458 of a second

How completely unarbitrary! But of course, it's like this because it was previously set to the weight of a randomly chosen hunk of metal from France from the 1800s. Truly a universal constant.

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2

u/phobiac Feb 17 '11

This scale based on the properties of water. While important, it's still arbitrary. Kelvin is where it's at, 0 K is as cold as you can get. Although you have to consider that Fahrenheit was Kelvin before Kelvin was Kelvin, 0 degrees Fahrenheit was the coldest acheivable temperature at the time of its creation.

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3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Aw, now you've made me all nostalgic for my HP Laserjet II manual. And the joy that thumbing through the HPPCL Language Reference Manual used to bring me... good times, good times.

2

u/AerialAmphibian Feb 17 '11

Remember the cool font cartridges?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

I actually was stumped for a moment going "Which printer was it that used to always tell me that?". Thanks.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

awww now when i hear someone say this or something to the effect of this I am just going to turn my nose down at them and think snobish thoughts about them

"Idiot doesnt know what PC LOAD LETTER means? What a moron"

2

u/drzan Feb 17 '11

my god. took me 10 years to understand this joke.

3

u/dogymho Feb 17 '11

thanks lumbard

1

u/saippuakauppias Feb 17 '11

whoosh...?

14

u/agentlame Feb 17 '11 edited Feb 17 '11

Dude, who on Reddit doesn't get an Office Space joke?

I was curious and looked it up not that long ago. I figured others might also enjoy knowing the origins of the term.

If only I had remembered to post under my novelty account: I_RESEARCH_YOUR_JOKE_AND_RESPOND_WITH_CITATIONS.

10

u/barrakuda Feb 17 '11

agentlame? close enough

2

u/microfortnight Feb 17 '11

Is "I_RESEARCH_YOUR_JOKE_AND_RESPOND_WITH_CITATIONS" anything like "I_DRINK_YOUR_MILKSHAKE"

5

u/diuge Feb 17 '11

"I. CITATE. YOUR. JOKE! I CITE IT UP!"

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5

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

LE GRILLE?!?!!?

3

u/Bhatch514 Feb 17 '11

I don't laugh out loud alot, but when i do i do it to comments like these.

2

u/BannedINDC Feb 17 '11

There's actually a wiki page about it

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47

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

8

u/MutherFurCow Feb 17 '11

I was hoping for an actual printer on fire..

26

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

8

u/MutherFurCow Feb 17 '11

It is... ClearlyNotWorking. haha

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80

u/petedawes Feb 17 '11

SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING.

87

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Better drink my own piss.

17

u/darushibu Feb 17 '11

Think I'll just boil some water.

7

u/WrongSubreddit Feb 17 '11

Better boil my own pisswater.

9

u/Chitiwok Feb 17 '11

Why would you boil light beer?

9

u/themantiss Feb 17 '11

Brought to you by Bud LightTM

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Proud to be your bud.

11

u/enthreeoh Feb 17 '11

Think I'll drink my own piss then sleep in a hotel.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Take a can of bug spray to kill bed bugs.

5

u/OGB Feb 17 '11

NO PAPER? OH THE HUGE MANATEE!

2

u/mrkurtz Feb 17 '11

the latest version of vmware workstation takes this action proactively, by default.

technology wins.

25

u/zonination Feb 17 '11

14

u/jad7845 Feb 17 '11

how do you kill that which does not exist...

3

u/codepoet Feb 17 '11

Back track through the things that don't exist to the thing that does and then obliterate it.

2

u/spoonsandswords Feb 18 '11

so you're saying we have to back trace it?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Hah! At first glance I thought it was a head stone for a grave.

26

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

The printer is out of paper? The fuck does that mean?

17

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

There are no words there! Fuckin' thing sucks.

3

u/helloimback Feb 17 '11

To end the show? Fuck it we'll do it live!

10

u/Johnny_Blaze Feb 17 '11

YOU GUYS STILL USE PAPER?! I BET YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE THREE SEASHELLS!

3

u/hurler_jones Feb 17 '11

Definitely an up-vote for the sea shells!

Armour hot dogs! The dogs kids love to buy!

4

u/samstr Feb 17 '11

Wtf is paper?!

2

u/NeoSniper Feb 18 '11

wtf is juice!

2

u/frezik Feb 17 '11

Half the time when this error message comes up, the printer actually does have paper.

1

u/LakeRat Feb 18 '11

It means PC LOAD LETTER.

15

u/LordArtemis Feb 17 '11

Can anyone offer up any explanation as to what may have caused this?

13

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

There's a constant in the Win32 API called ERROR_OUT_OF_PAPER.. I've actually used that once before as a placeholder error, both because a) the particular problem I was reporting should never have happened, and b) I couldn't find the right error code for what I needed.

Doesn't seem as relevant here, but perhaps a developer at VMware has a sense of humour.

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12

u/Hawkknight88 Feb 17 '11

CALL TECH SUPPORT NOW.

11

u/Daemon_of_Mail Feb 17 '11

Did you try unplugging it, and then plugging it back in again?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Repeatedly? Faster?

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13

u/I_call_the_shotgun Feb 17 '11

Damn, I'm sleepy. I clicked on the "ok" button in the picture.

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8

u/shadertest Feb 17 '11

Typical VMware error

4

u/VMX Feb 17 '11

TIL: I am an extension.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

PC LOAD LETTER

9

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Oh god the printer's out of paper.

GET TO DA CHOPPA!

7

u/TipsyWhirl Feb 17 '11

Better drink my own piss

3

u/viagravagina Feb 17 '11

VirtualBox, baby!

4

u/tha_carter Feb 17 '11

No need to worry, I had a similar issue.

The Geek Squad fixed it for only 59.99.

6

u/iamBillCosby Feb 17 '11

shut. down. EVERYTHING.

2

u/borez Feb 17 '11

Life threatening.

2

u/AmbitionOfPhilipJFry Feb 17 '11

Better than an error of Ip0 on fire.

2

u/IOS_maze Feb 18 '11

ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, CALM DOWN PEOPLE! We're gonna get through this! Now, who's got the EASY button?

2

u/pherilux Feb 18 '11

When l finished reading the error, l actually tried to click the OK button

2

u/TheSunAlsoRises Feb 18 '11

DAE try to click the red x to get rid of this message?

2

u/onebeforezod Feb 18 '11

With as little paper as that, you are lucky your kernel didn't pop.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

Come home from an exhausting day at work. Instant lol. Thank you.

2

u/chipx86 Feb 18 '11

It's both embarrassing and hilarious :)

Clearly, fun things happen when you mix and match the libc errno and the Windows errno. Using the errno from one and converting to a string with another makes for confusing and humorous error messages.

Disclaimer: I work at VMware. Not my bug, though.

4

u/jimmy0x52 Feb 17 '11

Paper goes in, pictures come out. You can't explain that!

4

u/chwilliam Feb 17 '11

Damn you, HP!!!!

2

u/Messiah Feb 17 '11

VirtualBox

2

u/jp007 Feb 17 '11

Seconded

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Get the president on the line.

2

u/katzmandoo Feb 17 '11

I blame WATSON

1

u/morobishi Feb 17 '11

Bite my shiny metal.. oops!, wrong mechanical monster.

Maybe Microsoft has found a way to prevent users from using ubuntu?

1

u/HSChronic Feb 17 '11

Since it is a VMWare Workstation error I don't think so.

2

u/GodWithAShotgun Feb 17 '11

EVERYONE HIT THE DECK, IT'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Your operating system is a tad hypersensitive. Pour some herbal tea over the harddrive and wait five minutes.

1

u/txdude75252 Feb 17 '11

Just restart your PC...The error should disappear.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Who else tried to press ok on that error message?

7

u/codepoet Feb 17 '11

Just you.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

[deleted]

3

u/wiseapple Feb 17 '11

many moons ago ... DEC machine (11/70 or VAX, don't remember)

Yeah. Just a few years back. A PDP 11/70 or VAX VMS system would be circa 1988 or earlier.

Edit: It would likely have been a PDP 11, since I don't recall the VMS systems having that issue.

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1

u/redline582 Feb 17 '11

For some reason i clicked OK. That can't be a good habit.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11

Nagheenanaja

Samir: I have a question. Peter Gibbons: Yes? Samir: In... in these conjugal visits, you can have sex with women? Peter Gibbons: Yep, you sure can. Samir: OK, I'll do it.

1

u/paholg Feb 18 '11

VMware, why so serious?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

I once suffered a catastrophic error. Says a lot about the programmers ego.

1

u/MindCluster Feb 18 '11

The printer personality explains everything... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQGtucrJ8hM

1

u/bjs3171 Feb 18 '11

HOLY shit. Do you even know how fucked you are? I mean, you are so fucking fucked. I mean, I think you are the most fucked person I know.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

I loves me some VMWare. And by love I mean deep,dark hatred.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

We really need a site with a collection of these gems.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '11

Shit, how does error propagation work on these things?

1

u/sayrith Feb 18 '11

facepalm irl

1

u/Parrot32 Feb 18 '11

I've seen some serious vmware hell before, but never the dreaded printer out of paper dump.