Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#21

Post by drunken_thor » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

kotaKat wrote: post #14

I’m suddenly reminded of a fairly large channel error from one of CN’s competitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelodeon_Games_and_Sports_f... When Nick GAS shut down, somehow, Dish Network had an automated loop of the channel that they themselves kept running for about 15 months after the channel’s demise. I’m curious what systems at Dish Network were still running a ghost channel by itself like that. Did they…

Knowing cable companies that was probably until all contracts with that channel as part of the subscription ended. They had to keep the channel running otherwise they might need to refund people.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#22

Post by DoctorOW » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

haritha-j wrote: post #8

TIL that showing a screenbug on the screen was an absolute pain. Also TIL what a screenbug is.

This is the rare opportunity I get to flex my broadcast experience. Generally these are setup in a chain:

    Playlists -> Playback -> Character Generator (draws the bugs, coming up next, and other graphics overtop), -> (other stuff) -> Network feed

> July 16, 2023: About 17 minutes into the 1:00pm airing of the Teen Titans Go! episode "And the Award for Sound Design Goes to Rob / Some of Their Parts", the feed blacked out for six seconds, then the screenbug disappeared for the rest of the episode. The screenbug returned during the 1:30pm airing of the episode "Cat's Fancy".

This sounds to me like the character generator failing and the playback being taken directly to air.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#23

Post by dpifke » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

As someone who has moderated online communities in the past, I recognize the value in having a page like this, to which you can point people if they want to enumerate such trifles instead of discussing the episodes or series themselves. Rather than just say such discussion is off-topic, you give them a separate, on-topic place to discuss it.

(I don't actually know if that is how this page came about, but it seems similar to other wiki pages I've seen used for such a purpose.)

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#24

Post by ekropotin » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

cr125rider wrote: post #12

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #3

If people are watching your work closely enough to document errors in it, and they care enough to make a wiki page, you’re doing truly great work.

Yes exactly. And this is an incredibly short list. Great engineering over there.

To be fair, there is no way to know if the list is complete or not.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#25

Post by hulitu » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

BrentOzar wrote: post #4

pjerem wrote: post #2

But how ?

And why? Sometimes it's just amazing to look at how much dedication someone put into a list like this, and wonder what they do with this information. It's inspiring (to me at least.) In a park near my hotel, there's an elderly gentleman who uses a giant brush to paint calligraphy on concrete walkways every morning. He paints it with water - so it gradually evaporates over the course of the next hour or so. I admire h…

> And why?

Exercise for Jira. /s

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#26

Post by hn773746483 » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

ashleyn wrote: post #15

mobilene wrote: post #11

I completely understand the kind of mind that would catalog such a thing. This wouldn't be my thing to catalog, but I'm glad somebody did it.

As a kid i remember being fascinated by technical difficulties screens, EAS tests, etc. Generally anything that unwittingly revealed the technical aspects of running a broadcast station. This was before we really knew how to use the internet even, so for many years, I'd wonder what a screen saying "No Access Card" or "Coriogen Eclipse" meant. When we learned about Google, it was suddenly a very educational experience…

On Toronto's public transportation, TTC, occasionally the upcoming bus stop ticker would flash diagnostic information(?) and "64K RAM" instead of the upcoming stop name. Doesn't seem like there's a wiki page about these faults yet.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#27

Post by crumpled » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #3

If people are watching your work closely enough to document errors in it, and they care enough to make a wiki page, you’re doing truly great work.

I completely agree.

But as a person in charge of keeping a brand new (volunteer) FM station running smoothly, this is horrifying. I feel every technical problem physically in my body.

It's not them, it's me.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#28

Post by crumpled » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

ekropotin wrote: post #24

cr125rider wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. And this is an incredibly short list. Great engineering over there.

To be fair, there is no way to know if the list is complete or not.

It almost certainly isn't. Some TV engineers are discovering the list right now and biting their tongues.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#29

Post by butlike » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

mobilene wrote: post #11

I completely understand the kind of mind that would catalog such a thing. This wouldn't be my thing to catalog, but I'm glad somebody did it.

I think I get it too. There's a strange, hard-to-describe feeling there for me. It's like a "comfy, but darkly eerie" feeling whenever something like a broadcast technical difficulty or "Max Headroom"-esque event happens.

Like, I'm sitting comfy watching TV, and there's some technical glitch that pulls back the curtain a little bit. It's interesting and not as irritating as a bug in say a website, because I'm still intrinsically doing the activity I was previously (watching television), I'm just now inexplicably watching a different broadcast.

Who knows, it might be the dreamlike quality Cartoon Network/Toonami/Adult Swim had in the late 90s/early 2000s as well. The technical glitches fit thematically with the low-fi beats.

Re: Cartoon Network channel errors (1995 – 2025)

#30

Post by puddnutz » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 6:27 PM UTC

I worked for 10 years in broadcast, as a director, IT support, and an Engineer.

I love picking errors out of any broadcast, especially with what I know now.

Seeing things like this and other documented cases of broadcast errors always make me happy because I know how hard it is sometimes to be in that line of work and how easy it is to just make little blips here and there.

Making errors is how I learned to never get between older people and their midday TV dramas. They absolutely know how to get a hold of you if they miss a few minutes of Young and Restless!