s-t-f-u.com/paste-the-error
Paste the error. Don't describe it.
You have the exact text on your screen. You retyped it from memory, badly, and now we're debugging your paraphrase.
The error message is the only piece of hard evidence in the entire conversation. Summarising it deletes the evidence.
"It didn't work" and "it's broken" describe your feelings about the software, which are valid and completely unhelpful.
Why it lands badly
You paraphrase away the answer
The bit you dropped as boring is usually the bit that identifies the problem.
It can't be searched
The literal error string is searchable. Your description of it is not.
It burns three replies
"What's the exact error?" "One sec." "Here." All avoidable.
Do this instead
Paste the full text
All of it. The stack trace too. Long is fine, wrong is not.
Say what you did
What you expected, what happened, and the last thing you clicked.
Screenshot only if you can't copy
A photo of a monitor taken with a phone is a last resort, not a first one.
When it's completely fine
The error genuinely has no text. It's a visual glitch. You're on a locked-down machine and physically can't copy. Then screenshot away.
Questions people ask
- It's really long, is that annoying?
- Less annoying than it being short and wrong.
- What if it has secrets in it?
- Redact the keys, keep the rest. Don't redact the message.