A halt of all application threads during garbage collection.
In Java, a 'Stop-The-World' pause occurs when the JVM halts all application threads to perform garbage collection, ensuring safe memory deallocation and relocation. For example, during a Major GC, all threads are stopped to clean up the entire heap, which can lead to noticeable latency in high-traffic applications like e-commerce platforms during peak events.
Additional Notes
How would you explain a ‘Stop-The-World’ pause in a Java interview?