Editing Page fault (section)

== Invalid conditions ==
Illegal accesses and invalid page faults can result in a [[segmentation fault]] or [[bus error]], resulting in an app or OS [[Crash (computing)|crash]]. [[Software bug]]s are often the causes of these problems, but hardware memory errors, such as those caused by [[overclocking]], may corrupt pointers and cause valid code to fail.

Operating systems provide differing mechanisms for reporting page fault errors. [[Microsoft Windows]] uses [[Structured Exception Handling|structured exception handling]] to report invalid page faults as [[access violation]] exceptions. [[UNIX-like]] systems typically use [[Signal (computing)|signals]], such as [[SIGSEGV]], to report these error conditions to programs. If the program receiving the error does not handle it, the operating system performs a default action, typically involving the termination of the running [[process (computing)|process]] that caused the error condition, and notifying the user that the program has malfunctioned. Windows often reports such crashes without going to any details. An experienced user can retrieve detailed information using [[WinDbg]] and the [[minidump]] that Windows creates during the crash. UNIX-like operating systems report these conditions with such error messages as "segmentation violation" or "bus error", and may produce a [[core dump]].