EXC_BAD_ACCESS signal received

Question

When deploying the application to the device, the program will quit after a few cycles with the following error:

Program received signal: \"EXC_BAD_ACCESS\".         


        

Answer 1

Even another possibility: using blocks in queues, it might easily happen that you try to access an object in another queue, that has already been de-allocated at this time. Typically when you try to send something to the GUI. If your exception breakpoint is being set at a strange place, then this might be the cause.

Answer 2

Hope you're releasing the 'string' when you're done!

Answer 3

An EXC_BAD_ACCESS signal is the result of passing an invalid pointer to a system call. I got one just earlier today with a test program on OS X - I was passing an uninitialized variable to pthread_join(), which was due to an earlier typo.

I'm not familiar with iPhone development, but you should double-check all your buffer pointers that you're passing to system calls. Crank up your compiler's warning level all the way (with gcc, use the -Wall and -Wextra options). Enable as many diagnostics on the simulator/debugger as possible.

Answer 4

Use the simple rule of "if you didn't allocate it or retain it, don't release it".

Answer 5

From your description I suspect the most likely explanation is that you have some error in your memory management. You said you've been working on iPhone development for a few weeks, but not whether you are experienced with Objective C in general. If you've come from another background it can take a little while before you really internalise the memory management rules - unless you make a big point of it.

Remember, anything you get from an allocation function (usually the static alloc method, but there are a few others), or a copy method, you own the memory too and must release it when you are done.

But if you get something back from just about anything else including factory methods (e.g. [NSString stringWithFormat]) then you'll have an autorelease reference, which means it could be released at some time in the future by other code - so it is vital that if you need to keep it around beyond the immediate function that you retain it. If you don't, the memory may remain allocated while you are using it, or be released but coincidentally still valid, during your emulator testing, but is more likely to be released and show up as bad access errors when running on the device.

The best way to track these things down, and a good idea anyway (even if there are no apparent problems) is to run the app in the Instruments tool, especially with the Leaks option.

Answer 6

I find it useful to set a breakpoint on objc_exception_throw. That way the debugger should break when you get the EXC_BAD_ACCESS.

Instructions can be found here DebuggingTechniques