What does (not responding) mean

It means exactly what it says.. The program has hung OR the internet connection has Hung and is not responding... It can be either one.

Often it will clear itself up after a few seconds or minutes.. But it is very very very annoying. I hate thumb twiddle time.

What bothers me most...

Police departments use Windows based computer aided dispatch in many cases.

The Military uses windows based computers to aim and fire guns and such.

Imagine "(Not Responding)" when seconds count... The patient dies before the dispatcher gets the 9-1-1 call to his desk. or BOOM the incoming missle arrives before you can fire the interceptor.

Usually that's all I have to do when getting the (Not Responding), just wait 15-40 seconds up to a minute or two. Sometimes it gets a little aggravating when it happens several times on the same browser within a half hour of browsing.
Appreciate all the information.

I've been getting the same thing....with Chrome. I eliminated Chrome and added Firefox.....and it's doing the same thing. I'm on an ATT MiFi.....closed IT down, and turned on my husband's Verizon JetPack and it now my computer works fine. I'm think MY problem is the ATT is getting used by a lot of people and/or I'm in a wavy area......sigh......

wagonmaster2 wrote:
... and also really bad with this campground's Wifi connection....

That may be the 32 people streaming video and the connection can't deliver the bits to you to complete the page.

I also get that at home from time to time from pages trying to run scripts and active x controls which I have blocked. Eventually the page gets loaded and the "not responding" goes away.

When you have a program that Windows shows as "Not responding" there could be a few things going on. First, if that program is really busy and doesn't programatically 'check in with the operating system', Windows will think it's hung up.

Just waiting a bit will clear these.

When Browsers do it, it's usually one of two things: the site uses some lengthy script that causes your browser to get really busy and then, like above, Windows thinks its hung up. Or the page is pulling content from a ton of other sites that confuse the browser and again, Windows thinks its busy.

Finally - as a programmer - I'm not immune from messing up. Sometimes a bug will do this too.


I've noticed that a few websites will give heartburn to Firefox but not Chrome. I usually just wait a bit, or close the browser and retry.

wagonmaster2 wrote:
Is this kind of like having a gap or space that pops up separating the Internet and my laptop computer before it comes together?

Yes.

For any program it means the key pressed was not understood by the program.

Many things can cause it: page not fully loaded when key was pressed, program has some bugs, your computer may have some corrupted files from bad updates, a command key code entered by mistake. etc.

It is just a generic response your computer will show when the computer freezes from an entry. Depending what caused it the error may be serious or not.

Best thing to do is close the program (I.E., Google, etc.) and reopen the program and try again. If it continues on the next try the program may need to be re-installed.

If the problem just cropped up in the last day or two, reverting the drive may help.

It is my humble opinion that this kind of question may best be answered this way:

Google: not responding