Editing Bus error (section)

{{Short description|Type of computer fault}}
{{More citations needed|date=July 2015}}
In [[computing]], a '''bus error''' is a [[Trap (computing)|fault]] raised by hardware, notifying an [[operating system]] (OS) that a process is trying to access [[computer data storage|memory]] that the [[Central processing unit|CPU]] cannot physically address: an invalid address for the [[address bus]], hence the name. In modern use on most architectures these are much rarer than [[segmentation fault]]s, which occur primarily due to memory access violations: problems in the [[logical address|''logical'' address]] or permissions.

On [[POSIX]]-compliant platforms, bus errors usually result in the SIGBUS signal being sent to the process that caused the error. SIGBUS can also be caused by any general device fault that the computer detects, though a bus error rarely means that the [[computer hardware]] is physically broken—it is normally caused by a [[Software bug|bug]] in [[computer program|software]].{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} Bus errors may also be raised for certain other paging errors; see below.