macOS kernel return 10 (KERN_MEMORY_ERROR): meaning and diagnosis

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: A memory object could not return page data during a fault; the condition may be temporary.

Could be also:
Constant	Type	OS
ERROR_BAD_ENVIRONMENT	Win32 error	Windows
ippStsJPEGMarker	Intel Ipp Status	Any
ECHILD	errno	Any
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL	BugCheck Code	Windows

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KERN_MEMORY_FAILURE	KERN_ALREADY_IN_SET

KERN_MEMORY_ERROR

KERN_MEMORY_ERROR reports a failure while Mach is trying to obtain data from a memory object during a page fault. XNU distinguishes it from KERN_MEMORY_FAILURE: here the object indicates that data could not be returned, but a later access to the same data may succeed.

This is therefore a data-supply or pager-side condition, not simply a bad virtual address. Mach maps address ranges to memory objects and normally asks the backing object or pager for page contents when a fault occurs. A temporary inability to supply that data can surface at the point of access rather than at the time the mapping was created.

What to investigate

The backing object's health, availability, and lifecycle.
Any lower-level I/O, filesystem, or pager diagnostics associated with the same time window.
Whether the operation can safely be retried after the underlying condition is resolved.
Whether the failure becomes repeatable for the same page; a persistent pattern may indicate a deeper backing-store problem.

Do not collapse this result into KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS. The virtual address can be valid; the problem is that its mapped object could not deliver the requested page data at that moment.

References

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