Hang - Definition and Overview

For capital punishment by suspension from and breaking of the neck, see hanging.

In computing, a hang may occur when code loops forever, waiting for an event which never happens. The symptom of a hang in a program will be that the program stops responding but does not generate any error message. Debuggers can often retrieve useful information and further processing from hung situations, as opposed to halts. Due to the fact that hangs do not generate any error message, error recovery is difficult and may never happen in some systems without further intervention from outside. Watchdog timers are designed to overcome this by restarting systems which hang.