faulting module msvcrt.dll, what is msvcrt.dll?

Question

I have Apache version 2.0.59.200 running locally serving a PHP application that connects to a Firebird database. Recently, I have been having problems with Apache crashing, as best as I can tell, randomly. I get the following error message:

Faulting application Apache.exe, version 2.0.59.200, faulting module msvcrt.dll, version 7.0.2600.5512, fault address 0x00036137.

0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 41 70 61   ure  Apa
0018: 63 68 65 2e 65 78 65 20   che.exe 
0020: 32 2e 30 2e 35 39 2e 32   2.0.59.2
0028: 30 30 20 69 6e 20 6d 73   00 in ms
0030: 76 63 72 74 2e 64 6c 6c   vcrt.dll
0038: 20 37 2e 30 2e 32 36 30    7.0.260
0040: 30 2e 35 35 31 32 20 61   0.5512 a
0048: 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74   t offset
0050: 20 30 30 30 33 36 31 33    0003613
0058: 37   

                 7       

I'm not sure what msvcrt.dll does, or why it would be crashing randomly. Here is a screenshot of the event in the Application Event Viewer.

http://imgur.com/yTbjq.jpg

If anyone has experience with similar crashes or knows what msvcrt.dll does, I would love the help.

Solution

MicroSoft Visual C RunTime. This is essentially the C standard library, which is used in most C/C++ programs --- or in other words, most programs. Don't assume that msvcrt is what's causing the crash; it's much more likely to be the program giving the wrong information to the standard library, and making it crash.

Basically, same procedure as any other bug in software: go get the latest (unmodified) version of the software, and see if that works. If it doesn't, check you're using it right. If it still doesn't, then look at the bugs for the program you're using, and if you can't find such a bug report the problem to them. They should get a fix made, or at least show that the problem is not theirs, and that you should bug microsoft about msvcrt.

Chances are, it's something wrong with your configuration of apache and/or PHP, or it's a fault with Apache on windows (since that's a relatively unstable version compared to apache on unix).