# Bus errors & segfaults

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 19, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099 "2007-02-19T21:29:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/blakeage)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099/1 "2007-02-19T21:29:03Z")

</div>

I’ve been getting daily Bus Errors on various ruby classes, which is  
crashing our Mongrel server pretty much every day.

Here is an example error:

ruby(15833,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x41b20d0: pointer  
being reallocated was not allocated  
ruby(15833,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* set a breakpoint in szone\_error to  
debug  
ruby(15833,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x41b20d0: pointer  
being reallocated was not allocated  
ruby(15833,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* set a breakpoint in szone\_error to  
debug  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/pathname.rb:266: [BUG] Bus Error

Here is another one I get:

ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x308ff20: pointer  
being reallocated was not allocated  
ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* set a breakpoint in szone\_error to  
debug  
ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x308ff20: incorrect  
checksum for freed object - object was probably modified after being  
freed, break at szone\_error to debug  
ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* set a breakpoint in szone\_error to  
debug  
ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x308ff20: pointer  
being reallocated was not allocated  
ruby(805,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* set a breakpoint in szone\_error to  
debug  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.12.5/lib/action\_controller/rescue.rb:136:  
[BUG] Segmentation fault

It’s running on OS X Server 10.4.8. 2GB RAM.

Any ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/blakeage)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099/2 "2007-02-19T22:33:09Z")

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Blake M. wrote:

> I’ve been getting daily Bus Errors on various ruby classes, which is  
> crashing our Mongrel server pretty much every day.
> 
> Here is an example error:
> 
> ruby(15833,0xa000ed88) malloc: \*\*\* error for object 0x41b20d0: pointer  
> being reallocated was not allocated

A bus error can occur if there is misaligned data on certain processor  
architectures, or if a physical address being accessed does not exist.  
If the virtual address does not exist, a segmentation fault occurs. You  
seem to be getting both.

In this case, I believe that these errors are indicative of a serious  
software incompatibility issue, possibly between Ruby and its shared  
libraries. For example, if Ruby calls an into extension shared library,  
and the library functions are not at the expected addresses, you may get  
this kind of problem. The .so file might be corrupted. The .so file  
might have been compiled with different flags than Ruby was compiled  
with. All these could cause issues.

- Has this been happening right from the start?
- When did you first notice this behavior?
- Do you have any Ruby extensions that might have been compiled with  
different compiler flags to the ones used to compile Ruby?

Without more information, I would recommend recompiling all the Ruby and  
third-party extensions C code, ensuring that they are all compiled with  
the same compiler options. If you still get these issues, then more  
information would be needed, such as the processor in your server  
(PowerPC or Intel?), which compiler version you are using, which version  
of Ruby, etc.

Good luck!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/blakeage)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099/3 "2007-02-19T23:35:04Z")

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Blake M. wrote:

> So, I apologize for posting to the Ruby list, it just seemed general  
> enough to be a Ruby error (and since one of the errors did not seem  
> Rails-related).
> 
> The developer is working hard on the next version of the OpenBase  
> bindings, so we should have a solution in a couple days.
> 
> Thanks for the lengthy input.

I believe no apology is necessary - it was an interesting question and  
might have been somehow Ruby related, you never know. Thanks for letting  
us all know what the likely cause is. I did not think of (but should  
have) a buggy Ruby extension being the problem - I guess I am so used to  
using ones that are very solid! I hope your application is up and  
running reliably soon.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/blakeage)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099/4 "2007-02-20T00:26:14Z")

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You don’t specify which hardware platform you’re running, but it does  
seem as though you’re using a locally-compiled version of Ruby. Did  
you build the openbase bindings yourself, or get a binary package from  
your 3rd-party source? If it’s the latter, I’d make sure that they  
built their bindings against precisely the same version of the Ruby  
dev headers and library as yours.

Aside from that, I’d recommend seriously thinking about moving off OS  
X as a production platform for Rails apps – I still have regular  
problems with Bus Errors crashing my ruby processes on Mac OS, even  
after building my own Ruby (and all my native extensions) from source.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/b38774/32.png) [@blakeage](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/blakeage)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/bus-errors-segfaults/86099/5 "2007-02-19T23:19:04Z")

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Edwin F. wrote:

> - Has this been happening right from the start?
> - When did you first notice this behavior?
> - Do you have any Ruby extensions that might have been compiled with  
> different compiler flags to the ones used to compile Ruby?

I believe the problem is actually due to the openbase bindings that we  
are using for our Rails application. I’ve talked to the developer, and,  
while the errors do not all occur in the openbase bindings/adapter, he  
feels that the bindings 0.7.3 are actually corrupting Ruby’s memory, and  
causing errors elsewhere.

These errors have been around since the beginning of development of our  
ROR application, but seemed to subside when putting the app in  
production. New to our setup was Mongrel as our application server,  
which crashes whenever malloc throws an error like above. Webrick seems  
to handle them without crashing (for the past couple hours anyway). So,  
for now, we’re running Webrick instead of Mongrel.

So, I apologize for posting to the Ruby list, it just seemed general  
enough to be a Ruby error (and since one of the errors did not seem  
Rails-related).

The developer is working hard on the next version of the OpenBase  
bindings, so we should have a solution in a couple days.

Thanks for the lengthy input.