E.g computers, Wi-Fi routers, tvs, consoles. All these items malfunction every once in while and all I do is turn them off then on again to get them working again. Why?
In: Technology
Computers are state machines. This means that each operation they perform assumes a given state, expects a certain type of input, and produces an expected output. If the state of the machine is not as expected, the result will not be reliable.
An invalid state can arise from multiple issues, such as malfunctioning hardware, or unexpected input. Since the state, and thus the operation of the computer, is largely dependent on each operation proceeding it (eg. the output of an operation operation at step 1 is used as an input in step 4), then errors can compound and at some point the process will not be able to proceed or recover. Resetting the device puts it back into a known good state (it clears any memory and goes back to step 1).
As an analogy, if I gave you a list of directions from A to B that were like, “take 2 steps right, 4 steps forward, 5 steps left” and for whatever reason something goes wrong – maybe you counted the wrong steps, or it rained last night and I didn’t account for a puddle on the path you had to go around – then if you keep following the steps I wrote at some point you’re going to realise something is wrong. You could try to work backwards to fix any errors, but that assumes you even know where the error occurred in the first place. So your best bet is to go back to A and start again.
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