A graphical glitch with the Dorgeshuun crossbow special attack. The player seems to pull the skin on her leg.
A similar graphics glitch that occurred over a year later on different situations.
A Glitch (also known as a bug) is a fault in a runtime (program) that causes the game to function improperly. The severity of glitches can vary. One glitch caused a player's name to appear as "null" immediately after login; another hard-to-find, yet serious bug allowed players to kill other players outside of the Wilderness. Abuse of such glitches, such as during the World 111 Glitch (which allowed players to attack other players outside of the Wilderness), is a severe offence which is punishable by a permanent ban under Rule 4 of the Code of Conduct.
Jagex recommends that if a player finds a bug or glitch in RuneScape that they should report it to Jagex immediately, via the Report a Bug screen on the Main Page of RuneScape.
Famous Bugs/Glitches
Larupia Clothing Glitch
this glitch has not been fixed by jagex. In the updated graphics member beta, when wearing full larupia hide clothing (hat, top, and legs) and an amulet of glory (uncharged), if you lean down to do something, (eg. bury bones or dismantle a box trap) a spike of tan will sprout up through your back, as if impaling you. This glitch is very similiar to the sacred fire/rune crossbow glitch.
Homeport Book Glitch
this glitch has not been fixed by Jagex. When the Lumbridge Home Teleport is performed, if you walk or eat when you take the book out,your player will stand up but the book should stay for a few seconds,floating near the ground.
World 111 Glitch
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. One infamous example of bug abuse was the World 111 Glitch - also called the World 111 Massacre or the Falador Massacre (after where the glitch occurred). On the day of 6 June 2006 (or 06/06/06, oddly enough) a player named "Cursed You" held a party at his house celebrating level 99 Construction, and eventually expelled all the guests. Those in the dungeon and fight arena were able to kill anyone, anywhere. The resulting PK rampage caused many deaths and the permanent banning of most participants. Although the owner of the house was not banned for the massacre, he was banned for real-world trading later on.
Moderators tried to tell people to bank their items and 'glory' teleport but they were barely seen amongst the mass amount of followers.
This bug remained on RuneScape for about an hour and was fixed immediately after it became known to Jagex. The repercussions of this glitch are still being felt today, as some of those banned and/or killed owned rare items such as party hats. The removal of the players meant the rare items were deleted also.
Monster Death Glitch
This glitch cannot be fixed by Jagex. This glitch often involves the deaths of monsters, killed while fighting the player, but can also happen in areas with high mortality rates such as Castle Wars. The glitch makes the monster, or player, appear in the 'prone' dead position (after death for monsters, randomly for ordinary players). The 'dead' monster can still move, attack etc from the prone position while players can use skills etc. It has also happened a few times at bounty hunter. Not very often you will see it there though. As the bug is a client-side problem, it cannot be fixed by Jagex.
This Glitch also sometimes happens in the Fist of Guthix minigame.
Granite Maul Special Attack Glitch
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. All member players wielding a Granite Maul gained the ability to use an infinite number of special attacks for that weapon.
Party hat duplication glitch
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. The glitch was not an attempt to duplicate items. A player named SixFeetUnder had been experimenting with RuneScape by using a third-party program called Auto-rune in an attempt to simply trade the scythe. Although the player never managed to trade the scythe, he did discover how to create any non-stackable item. Therefore, the glitch did not duplicate existing items but instead created new ones.
The glitch was performed by trading with a player, and then using AutoRune to enter the numerical value that corresponded with a certain non-stackable item to have an item pop up and be traded to the other person. For example, the number for the Rune 2-handed sword was 81, so that value would be entered into AutoRune and the player who was trading with the one using AutoRune would be able to receive that item.
In his excitement, the experimenter revealed to very few people how to execute the glitch. These players then duplicated several items, the most expensive at the time: specifically party hats, rune two-handed swords, and dragon square shields. The most expensive item, the pink party hat, was created most amongst them. That day, though, one of these people revealed that the glitch existed.
Lean Bug
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. The Lean bug caused players to lean in an unusual way. Players could move around without any walking/running animations as if they were hovering over the ground. This was caused first by leaning on the wall in the Duel Arena to spectate. Players then challenged other players in the Duel Arena while still leaning on the wall, the player leaning would get stuck in the leaning position.
Magic Carpet Glitch
A player walking around with a magic carpet at their waist
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. A glitch appeared after the server went down. Because the player happened to be flying on Ali Morrisane's flying carpet as the server went down, the magic carpet ended up stuck around the player's waist. This was caused by the server rollback (which happens after servers go down) and the game is set to 15 minutes before the server went down.
Second floor walk on air glitch
This glitch was fixed by Jagex. In mid-2004 a glitch developed on Runescape Classic where players could ascend to the second floor outside of Falador castle by standing in certain spots outside the castle and clicking a ladder inside the castle. The player would then be standing on the empty blackness outside the walls of the second floor of the castle, and could not come down. Players could walk to outside most of the areas of the free world from this point, although there were all kinds of invisible obstructions to movement in the empty space. Eventually a ladder was placed in the empty space above Varrock which allowed a player to choose to climb down to the normal play area. It is unknown if there were other areas to affect the glitch allowing to go to the "second floor" in the member's area. Many players lost accounts by getting their character to the "second floor" without knowledge of how to get down.
The glitch to get to the "upper area" was fixed after about a week, and any character on the "upper floor" was teleported to ground level when they tried to login under Runescape 2.
Moonwalking Glitch
It is typically produced by standing outside a bank, directly next to the wall, while keeping a banker in sight. The player clicks on his/her minimap in a spot somewhere behind their current position. Directly afterward, the player must click on the banker. The player will move to the spot, but facing the banker, essentially walking backwards, or "moonwalking." It mostly happens near banks and the Grand Exchange.
Rabbit Hole Glitch
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex. When a player is playing Clan Wars, and goes to the North-Western part of the arena, and stands on a certain spot, the player will go under the ground. While doing this, players can't see you on the ground, but they could see a white dot on the mini map.
Fist of Guthix minigame Glitch
The Fist of Guthix glitch being demonstrated
This glitch occured on the day of release for the Fist of Guthix minigame. There were many people in the same location which caused the engine to lag and players to appear outside the entry hall's walls. Another glitch, recently fixed, instantly logged players out when they walked into a house.
Falador West Bank glitch
This glitch has been fixed by Jagex - This glitch occured sometime from the 10th of April 2008 - 15th of April 2008. Players could see three gaps in the roofline and the floor inside the bank was significantly lowered. [1]
Crazy head glitch
A player demonstrating the Crazy Head glitch with a Raspberry emote.
This glitch has not been fixed by Jagex. The Crazy head glitch is a glitch that was released with the quest Smoking Kills, where if you are a female player, and have the 'elf' hair style, and are wearing the masked earmuffs headgear, your head will stretch all over the place when performing emotes or holding objects such as the pet rock. Some players found it just after the quest arrived when they did random emotes with that combination.
D'hide glitch
This glitch has not been fixed by Jagex. The D'hide glitch occured when a female player wearing a d'hide body attempt to use the shortcut to the cosmic altar.