What does "no file" mean?

[Robert Perlberg]

On several (rare) occasions I have seen the message "no file" appear on
the console on almost every implementation of UNIX I've ever worked
on.  I can never track down what causes it.  Once I had a program that
would always trigger the message.  I don't remember how I fixed it, but
it was mostly just luck and code juggling.  Now I have a system that
occasionally goes "no file" several times and then goes funny (can't
seem to find commands, can't make pipes, quit (^|) doesn't work, etc.)
until I reboot it.  No vendor I've spoken to can tell me what "no file"
means.  I don't have source code.  Could someone who does do a grep on
"no file" and tell me where this stuff is coming from and what it
means?

Robert Perlberg
Resource Dynamics Inc.
New York
{philabs|delftcc}!rdin!perl