Today, when you have a crash, the message is pretty standard and very intelligible but it was not always like that let’s review what they were.

Murex error messages : the X-windows era

Time: time before 2000/2001

At the time of X windows, there was no error message as such. If a session was crashing, basically the process would stop straight away on the server side and the window would simply disappear on the client side. Did you really have a crash? Or did you close it by mistake? You can never be sure and it was always confusing. Probably the best time for supporting customers 🙂

Murex error messages : Fatal error

Time: from 2000/2001 to ca 2005

When Murex released the Mxg2000 version, the software architecture changed. On the client side, you had a thin client running. As such, if the process crashed on the server side, you then had to display something on the screen. So they settled for probably the largest error message possible: Fatal error for session detected for process XXX. Session will now close (I’m not completely sure I nailed it exactly as it’s been some times!). All I remember is that the error could span on your whole screen especially if you were just using a 15′ screen.

Murex error messages : Maybe?

Time from ca2005 to ca2009

Alright, to be fair this was the error message that motivated me to write this post: The error message ended in Service is maybe dead. Technically it was correct: the client could not connect anymore to the server process. So maybe it was dead.

Problem is that for end users the results was the same: close and restart a new session. And if you had few crashes in a row, you would wonder if Murex was mocking you. Yeah maybe it was 🙂

Murex error messages : Modern times

Time from ca2009 to now

Sadly (for this post I mean), Murex is crashing less and less and we probably reached the most clear and intuitive message to date: “Process is not valid anymore. Session will now close.” It’s not too long it’s concise. Unfortunately you can get access to the java stack that many people still like to sent but as the crash occurred on the server side, the java stack just shows that the client cannot connect anymore.
Anyway, after few iterations, the message is now crystal clear!

Dear reader, my memory is not what it used to be. So if you see an error (haha) or something missing, please let me know and I’ll correct it.