ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Buffer underrun

Okay kiddo, let's talk about buffer underrun. Imagine you are playing with Legos and you have a big bin of bricks that you can use to build things. Let's say you are putting together a really cool spaceship and you have to keep reaching into the bin to get more bricks.

Now, imagine that sometimes you get really distracted and you forget to put more bricks into the bin. Eventually, you'll run out of bricks to use and your spaceship won't be finished. That's kind of like what happens with buffer underrun.

A "buffer" is like a holding area for things. In the computer world, a buffer is a place where data is stored temporarily before it gets sent to another part of the computer. Sometimes, the computer needs data to be sent really quickly, and if the computer runs out of data in the buffer before it's done sending it, that's called a "buffer underrun."

It's like the computer is building a spaceship using bits of data instead of Legos. If it runs out of bits of data before the spaceship is done being built, the computer can't finish doing what it needs to do. And just like you can't go back in time to put more Legos in the bin, the computer can't go back to find more data once it's been sent.

But don't worry, clever people have come up with ways to prevent buffer underruns from happening. They make sure there's always enough data in the buffer before it gets sent, so the computer can keep working without any interruptions.