APACHE Crashing: Parent: child process exited with status 3221225477 -- Restarting - php

Question

My following setup is Xampp 1.7.7 and here is the info for everything in that package:
- Apache/2.2.21 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/1.0.0e PHP/5.3.8 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1
I'm running the server on Windows XP SP3 32 bit OS, 4 gigs of ram, Quad Core.
The issue I'm having in my apache error log file is:
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:55 2012] [notice] Parent: child process exited with status 3221225477 -- Restarting.
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:57 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:57 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:59 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.21 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/1.0.0e PHP/5.3.8 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:59 2012] [notice] Server built: Sep 10 2011 11:34:11
[Tue Apr 24 15:55:59 2012] [notice] Parent: Created child process 776
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:00 2012] [notice] Disabled use of AcceptEx() WinSock2 API
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:01 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:01 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:02 2012] [notice] Child 776: Child process is running
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:02 2012] [notice] Child 776: Acquired the start mutex.
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:02 2012] [notice] Child 776: Starting 350 worker threads.
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:02 2012] [notice] Child 776: Listening on port 443.
[Tue Apr 24 15:56:02 2012] [notice] Child 776: Listening on port 80.
This seems to occur sporadically throughout the day and I even tried using Win32DisableEx, EnableIMAP Off and EnableSendFile Off in the apache conf file. I also tried copying the libmysql.dll file to the system32 and apache/bin folders with no avail.
If anyone knows other reasons this error for the child process exiting and causing apache to crash, info would be greatly appreciated. If any additional log files are needed please let me know.
Tks,
Shane.

Answer 1

The error code 3221225477 is 0xC0000005 in hex, which on Windows is:
#define STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION ((NTSTATUS)0xC0000005L)
Access violation is Windows' version of "segmentation fault", which simply said means that the program tried to access a memory which is not allocated. This can happen for a lot of different reasons, but mostly (if not always) is a bug in the program.
Now, my guess for your situation, is that there is either a bug in PHP or in one of PHP's extensions or in Perl or some Perl application. Apache itself is usually very stable, but if you use some unusual extension, it might be the cause, too.
I would suggest updating all your configuration to latest versions. If you want to find the source of the problem for sure, run Apache inside a debugger, like Visual Studio or OllyDbg. When the exception (access violation) happens, it will stop execution (instead of restarting) and you'll see in which module it is.
Also take a look in the access log, if there is a suspicious request with the same timestamp as the error. But it may happen that the crash happens before the request is saved in the logfile.