drop on the floor

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

drop on the floor
 vt.

   To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or
   other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just
   started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty
   mail and netnews relay sites that lose messages. See also {black
   hole}, {bit bucket}.

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

drop on the floor

   To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages
   or other valuable data.  "The gateway ran out of memory, so it
   just started dropping packets on the floor."  Also frequently
   used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that lose
   messages.  See also {black hole}, {bit bucket}.

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