What is a known error?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 7. Seven ITIL practices in detail medium
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How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
The options
Not correct A documented action that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident
That describes a workaround. A workaround is frequently associated with a known error, but the two terms are not interchangeable: one is the mitigation, the other is the analysed but unresolved problem.
Not correct An incident whose cause has been identified during diagnosis
A known error is a status of a problem, not of an incident. Incidents are closed when service is restored; they do not become known errors.
Not correct A problem for which a permanent resolution has been implemented and verified
That is a resolved problem, which is exactly what a known error is not. Known errors are the ones still outstanding after analysis.
Correct A problem that has been analysed but has not been resolved
Correct. The status changes at the point of analysis, not at the point of fixing. A problem becomes a known error once it is understood, and it remains one until it is resolved.
Why
The trigger for known error status is analysis, not resolution. This matters because it lets a provider publish what it knows — cause, symptoms and any workaround — while the decision about whether a permanent fix is worth making is still open, and sometimes never taken.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 7
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 7 and space the ones you get wrong.
More questions on this objective
- Which statement best describes what the incident management practice is intended to achieve? machine-checked
- How is an incident defined in ITIL? machine-checked
- Several incidents are open at once and the support team must decide which to work on first. On what basis should the order be decided? machine-checked
- A difficult incident is worked on by pulling several specialists from different teams into the same session at the same time; once it becomes clear who is best placed to continue, the others step away. What is this technique called? machine-checked
- Why does an organisation define a separate procedure for major incidents rather than handling them exactly like all other incidents? machine-checked
- A support team routinely fixes incidents by phone and updates the incident record only with the word 'fixed'. What is the most significant consequence of this? machine-checked