Helpful Error Message
Oh man, I was so excited when I downloaded the newest version of Google Chrome in Chrome and it started automatically installing. Google is installing the update for me automatically like a real browser! I don’t have to do it myself, the browser just knows that I want to update it. I messed around with Chrome a long time ago, but was put off by a lack of maturity.
Then, I got this helpful error message:
The installer encountered error 4.
It kind of crushed my spirits. I mean, installation errors happen, but giving me an error code of “The installer encountered error 4″ is unacceptable. Sorry, I don’t have your internal documentation on what error four does, or know what the programmer was thinking when he or she put this error message that should never happen. At least apologize to me in a lovable way or something. “Whoopsies, something unexpected happened with your installation.” After searching, it appears that I am not the only one that has run into this problem.
This is why I still use Firefox. The javascript is darn fast in Chrome, but the plugins and overall quality are just not there yet. I understand that it’s still in beta, so these things will likely come in time.
I closed down Chrome after downloading the file, and tried again, and it seemed to work this time.
Friendly tip: Alt + Print Screen just copies the currently highlighted window element to the clipboard, instead of your entire 2800 x 1050 desktop.
Lesson: ALWAYS give human-understandable descriptions of error codes.
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Yes, Chrome is still in beta, but so is Gmail.
Speaking of Gmail – have you heard about ‘Mail Goggles’? It makes you solve math questions before it will send your email – just in case you had a few too many the night before and ought not be sending emails is such a state of mind…
Now, that’s more helpful than your error message Anthony.
I’ll give em a while longer to get there act together, although I really really really don’t want another browser to target against :/
After rereading the post, I seem a bit more irritated than I probably was at the time. I was just hoping to stress the importance of good error messages.
@JAO: Yeah, I thought that the Mail Goggles was a great idea. I wonder if they thought of this due to user feedback or just thinking about the problem.
@RPH: It is strange to me that Gmail is still beta, seems like they have most of the bugs worked out. On the other hand, a bunch of users just got locked out for about 24 hours, so maybe they don’t have everything ironed out yet. http://groups.google.com/group/announcements-and-alerts/browse_thread/thread/1c7d092c4df3fa12?pli=1
@RCU: It seems like Chrome will be pretty standards compliant, although I agree that it will add some development overhead. But I don’t think it will be as bad as, say, IE6 or something. I would imagine that these small quirks will be worked out in the near future.