Error On Error
Here is an example of an error message generated by our SAP system.
Error number 999 was used by a number of programs and was generated in a variety of ways usually very obscure. It is assumed that since developers did not know what the next available error number was they used 999 as a dummy until they could find out what number was free but then forgot to replace it with a real message. The real culprit here is a poor adherence to QA procedures.
When it was discovered that the each program generated the error for different reasons a generic message was created that must cause the users some concern and no doubt makes the support desk agents wish they were someplace else.
We do intend to generate individual messages for each program so they can be more explicit and helpful but we can not figure out what error has occurred in most cases because they are so obscure.
Pressing the Help button in the initial error message (above) offers the amplified information shown here:
Please do not identify me publicly since my employer takes a dim view of that sort of thing.
Name withheld by request …
Well, technically speaking, the error information is perfectly correct … but also completely worthless. Of course, a lot of error messages seem to be like that.