OS X Error Codes and What to Do With Them
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Once in a while I get a phone call with a question much like this:
Customer: “I wanted to copy some files, but it doesn’t work!”
Me: “OK, do you get an error of some kind?”
Customer: “Yes, it says: Error 33″
Me: “Oh, OK, that helps” (to be honest I don’t have a clue because I don’t know every error code in OS X)
Most of the time after talking with the client I finally figure out that it’s a full disk or some of the files are corrupt, or something else, either way I get it fixed! Still I thought to myself; “Need to digg a little deeper into this error code thing”.
So I (finally) did and today I got pointed to a very nice overview on all the error codes in OS X. It’s an Apple document which gives you a good idea on what the error means. Just follow the list and you get pointed in the right direction.
This could be very helpful when helping clients out. I’m going to learn some fairly common errors so that I can impress my clients by saying…
Me: “Ahh, error the good ‘ol -34. It means that your disk is full. Time to do some spring cleaning on your harddisk”
Client: “Wow, you are amazing!” (client thinks: “I have the best computer engineer in the world”)
Me (thinks): “Need to increase my hourly fees”
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4 Comments
dabrace1984
March 27th, 2008
at 3:28am
Thanks for this document. I’m starting to do a lot more work with Mac clients and this will definitely help out.
FYI: In your example, error code -31 doesn’t exist according to this document.
John van Leeuwen
March 27th, 2008
at 3:31am
LOL, you’re right, it doesn’t!
Made typo there… Changed it! Thanks for noticing!
Hackonia
March 27th, 2008
at 9:56am
From the linked article “This document applies to Mac OS 9 and earlier.” Those error codes might be different for OS X.
John van Leeuwen
March 27th, 2008
at 11:55am
Yes, you’re correct, although most of these errors are still common in OSX. So yes, they might differ with OSX but they still are quite helpful. At least in my experience!