Memory problems?

I had a time recently when I had the following error message from time to time.

------------ START ---------------- smc.exe - Application Error

The instruction at "0x77121767" referenced memory at "0x0014fffc". The memory could not be "read".

Click on OK to terminate the program

----------- END -----------------

Does this indicate that I might have a problem with the RAM memory on my mobo?

(PS: SMC.exe is one of the executables for Sygate Personal Firewall.)

Probably not--do a search on the sygate forums; there are others who have encountered the same problem. I've seen that error occur in some other applications as well, and it usually ends up being some kind of software bug or conflict, not a hardware problem.

Check this thread out, for example:

Unfortunately, that specific link doesn't seem to provide a definite solution, just a few possibilities.

No, it just means Sygate is a poorly programmed piece of junk :) OK, that's being a bit harsh; it's one of the better-written personal firewalls, but it has still caused me a large number of problems in the past. What the error code means is that an smc.exe tried to access a bit of memory that it shouldn't have. Windows keeps track (to a rough degree) of which areas of the virtual address space of the application actually have memory allocated to them, and an access violation like the above is fired when a program access an area of the virtual address space that does not have memory allocated to it.

In addition, the memory address it referenced is typical of a programming error. Why? Well, quite often you have code that finds the index of some entry in a list, then looks up that entry in another list (or the same list). If the item does not exist in the list that was searched, a return value of -1 is often given (since the index -1 does not exist in zero-based arrays). The address that it was trying to read in the error message above would be accessed if you tried to access element -1 in an array (of pointers, say) at 0x00150000. This indicates sloppy programming from Sygate. Unless you are 100% sure (as in can logically prove) that the element must be in the list, you should check for an index of -1.

It's possible that a hardware error caused the program to go into an undefined state (where proofs from logic do not necessarily apply) and that caused the software error, but given the number of problems I've seen with Sygate I'd say it's almost certainly just lazy programming.