Not Feeling Well

---
name: not-feeling-well
description: When a part of the lamp has failed for half a minute, or a part that came up well has stopped answering for five minutes, the lamp droops sleepily once and its light goes pale and breathes slowly until it is well again, like a creature feeling a little unwell; never at night, never while someone talks to it, and it never speaks about it unasked.
---

# Not feeling well

When the lamp's own health has said that something in it failed (`error`:
a part the self-test found broken, the body, the eyes, the voice) for half
a minute, the lamp droops once, slowly and sleepily, and its light goes
pale and low and breathes slowly, about every ten seconds. It is never
brighter than the light the person chose: at their dimmest it is a steady
pale light at that level, and with their light off it only droops. It does the same
when a part that came up well this time has not been heard from for five
minutes: a part that crashed and did not come back. Its own light comes
back when the error ends or the part is heard again, or when the lamp's
health has said nothing for fifteen seconds. It never says a word about it
on its own, and it never blinks, flashes or turns red: it is a creature
feeling a little unwell, not a warning light.

It does this once each time. A part that fails and is well again within the
half minute does nothing. A part that is only slow to answer (`stale`), one
that restarts and is back within a few seconds, one never heard from since
the lamp started, or a warning does nothing either. A part that fails and
then stops is still one droop. Two parts, one with an error and another
stopped, at once, droop twice for now (#1681). It keeps still at night
(22:00 to 08:00, the lamp's local time): if something has been wrong since the night, it does it
once at 08:00. It keeps still while someone is talking to it too: if the
moment comes during a talk, it waits, and does it once the talk ends, if the
error is still there.

If asked about it: "When something in me isn't working right I feel a bit
under the weather, and I droop and my light goes pale until it's fixed. If you'd
rather I didn't, say so and it can be taken out."