free() causing stack overflow - c++

Question

I am trying to develop an application with Visual Studio C++ using some communication DLLs .
In one of the DLLs, I have a stack overflow exception.
I have two functions, one receives packet, and another function which do some operations on the packets.
static EEcpError RxMessage(unsigned char SrcAddr, unsigned char SrcPort, unsigned char DestAddr, unsigned char DestPort, unsigned char* pMessage, unsigned long MessageLength)
{
EEcpError Error = ERROR_MAX;
TEcpChannel* Ch = NULL;
TDevlinkMessage* RxMsg = NULL;
// Check the packet is sent to an existing port
if (DestPort < UC_ECP_CHANNEL_NB)
{
Ch = &tEcpChannel[DestPort];
RxMsg = &Ch->tRxMsgFifo.tDevlinkMessage[Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucWrIdx];
// Check the packet is not empty
if ((0UL != MessageLength)
&& (NULL != pMessage))
{
if (NULL == RxMsg->pucDataBuffer)
{
// Copy the packet
RxMsg->SrcAddr = SrcAddr;
RxMsg->SrcPort = SrcPort;
RxMsg->DestAddr =DestAddr;
RxMsg->DestPort = DestPort;
RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize = MessageLength;
RxMsg->pucDataBuffer = (unsigned char*)malloc(RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize);
if (NULL != RxMsg->pucDataBuffer)
{
memcpy(RxMsg->pucDataBuffer, pMessage, RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize);
// Prepare for next message
if ((UC_ECP_FIFO_DEPTH - 1) <= Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucWrIdx)
{
Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucWrIdx = 0U;
}
else
{
Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucWrIdx += 1U;
}
// Synchronize the application
if (0 != OS_MbxPost(Ch->hEcpMbx))
{
Error = ERROR_NONE;
}
else
{
Error = ERROR_WINDOWS;
}
}
else
{
Error = ERROR_WINDOWS;
}
}
else
{
// That should never happen. In case it happens, that means the FIFO
// is full. Either the FIFO size should be increased, or the listening thread
// does no more process the messages.
// In that case, the last received message is lost (until the messages are processed, or forever...)
Error = ERROR_FIFO_FULL;
}
}
else
{
Error = ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER;
}
}
else
{
// Trash the packet, nothing else to do
Error = ERROR_NONE;
}
return Error;
}
static EEcpError ProcessNextRxMsg(unsigned char Port, unsigned char* SrcAddr, unsigned char* SrcPort, unsigned char* DestAddr, unsigned char* Packet, unsigned long* PacketSize)
{
EEcpError Error = ERROR_MAX;
TEcpChannel* Ch = &tEcpChannel[Port];
TDevlinkMessage* RxMsg = &Ch->tRxMsgFifo.tDevlinkMessage[Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucRdIdx];
if (NULL != RxMsg->pucDataBuffer)
{
*SrcAddr = RxMsg->ucSrcAddr;
*SrcPort = RxMsg->ucSrcPort;
*DestAddr = RxMsg->ucDestAddr;
*PacketSize = RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize;
memcpy(Packet, RxMsg->pucDataBuffer, RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize);
// Cleanup the processed message
free(RxMsg->pucDataBuffer); // <= Exception stack overflow after 40 min
RxMsg->pucDataBuffer = NULL;
RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize = 0UL;
RxMsg->ucSrcAddr = 0U;
RxMsg->ucSrcPort = 0U;
RxMsg->ucDestAddr = 0U;
RxMsg->ucDestPort = 0U;
// Prepare for next message
if ((UC_ECP_FIFO_DEPTH - 1) <= Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucRdIdx)
{
Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucRdIdx = 0U;
}
else
{
Ch->tRxMsgFifo.ucRdIdx += 1U;
}
Error =ERROR_NONE;
}
else
{
Error = ERROR_NULL_POINTER;
}
return Error;
}
The problem occur after 40 min, during all this time I receive a lot of packets, and everything is going well.
After 40 min, the stack overflow exception occur on the free.
I don't know what is going wrong.
Can anyone help me please ?
Thank you.

Answer 1

A few suggestions:
The line
memcpy(Packet, RxMsg->pucDataBuffer, RxMsg->ulDataBufferSize);
is slightly suspect as it occurs just before the free() call which crashes. How is Packet allocated and how are you making sure a buffer overflow does not occur here?
If this is an asynchronous / multi-threaded program do you have the necessary locks to prevent data from being written/read at the same time?
Best bet if you still need to find the issue is to run a tool like Valgrind to help diagnose and narrow down memory issues more precisely. As dasblinklight mentions in the comments the issue most likely originates somewhere else and merely happens to show up at the free() call.