IE7 error message

Recently I have been getting an error message while using Internet Explorer, as follows:

"stack overflow at line: 96"

It appears to be benign, but I would like to know what it means. What stack is overflowing?
What needs to be adjusted to avoid this message?

 

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It's probably something that can be dealt with. No doubt someone will tell you how

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But why don't you just download Firefox ? It's much better in my experience.

 

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_overflow

Simply put IE (Internet Explorer) has a "Limited" amount of RAM assigned to it, any add-on's, webpages or scripts then use a certain amount of it's allowance.

A stack overflow is when an allotted amount isn't big enough to store the data that's trying to be placed there and causes and overflow. Most references of stack overflow's with IE on the internet suggest that perhaps add-on's to IE can cause the problem, it's also possible that the webpage you were trying to view has a "non-terminating" (infinite loop) script run which would eventually eat up the memory, however the browser to my knowledge crashes before running out of memory.

Suggested actions online is to either try finding the icon under your start button for Internet Explorer without Add-on's, or to turn off any add-ons yourself and turn them on, one by one until you can work out which one is causing the problem.

 

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do you get at a specific website? it appears to be linked to java source files.

 

Programs that overflow their stack in a predictable way can be exploited (meaning if you can do something to intentionally cause a running program to overflow its stack, you can do a lot of damage).

Make sure you have the most recent Internet Explorer updates, and do a malware scan. Also, like Stryder said, try disabling your add-ons, and re-enabling them one by one. Most likely it's caused by a bug in one of your add-ons.

Does this happen only when you visit certain sites, or is it seemingly random?

 

As far as I remember it has happened only for two sites (newspapers - one local and the other Wash. Post).

 

actually people report the same issue with Wash. post. Its a specific website issue.

 

I think it's also a security measure. I don't have windows so I can't check if you can increase the buffer size...but I would imagine you could in security settings. It's to prevent apps from assembling themselves from dormant code (that becomes active) loaded with the page...larger than a certain size. Whatever size it is that's been chosen is most likely the size IE deemed "unacceptably large", anything below that would prove difficult to embed malicious intent.

Though it also could be an OLD security measure from the IE5 days that just never found its way out, when pages would overload the browser and attempt to crash the computer. Simply done by placing random code in the memory cache, the memory cache wasn't as individualized then...for example ending a single process was equally likely to end all of your processes.

 

I doubt it. That validation is done long before it would actually cause an error. Also, the code that's loaded wouldn't go into the stack. You're probably right that it occurs when IE tries to load scripts with the page.

I think it occurs when IE, or one of its add-ons, fails to handle certain error conditions when loading pages or parsing scripts. There is probably something funny about a particular script on the Washington Post site. The script engine (or the plugin framework, or even Windows itself) would detect the overflow and throw an exception back up to IE, where it then gives you an error message, and fixes the situation.

But that makes me wonder - does it actually load the page correctly, or does it stop and have to be reloaded? Also, does the error only happen when you first visit the page, or does it happen if you refresh the page?

 

Post the exact URL, or you could do this yourself, use firefox and add firebug to debug whats going on, we'll know what is buggy for sure.

Rick

 

I was advised to update flash video and shockwave. Since then the problem has not recurred. I have no idea why this fixed it or if it did. As dragon mentioned, it might have been a problem with the Wash. Post, which they fixed.