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STATUS_INSTRUCTION_MISALIGNMENT
The instruction pointer violated the architecture alignment rule
Some processor architectures require instruction addresses to be aligned. This status reports an instruction-fetch alignment failure, not a misaligned data load. It is most often relevant to non-x86 targets, hand-written assembly, generated code, or a corrupted function pointer whose low bits no longer identify a valid instruction boundary.
The exception address alone may be the invalid branch target rather than the instruction that produced it. Inspect the saved link or return register, branch instruction, and symbolized caller to find where the bad target originated. For JIT-generated code, verify both alignment and that instruction-cache synchronization and function-table registration were completed before execution began.
What to inspect
- Check the architecture’s required alignment for executable addresses.
- Inspect the branch source and the unmodified function-pointer value.
- Verify generated-code allocation, finalization, and instruction-cache flush steps.
- Do not confuse this code with misaligned data access statuses.
References
- Microsoft Learn: EXCEPTION_RECORD
- Microsoft Learn: Exception Dispatching
- Microsoft Windows SDK metadata: ntstatus.h
- Microsoft Learn: x64 exception handling
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