Crash report

What happened?

Under OOM, frame.f_back's lazy parent-frame allocation fails and sets MemoryError, but PyFrame_GetBack returns NULL and frame_back_get_impl reports it as None, leaving the exception pending; the next LOAD_ATTR then trips assert(!PyErr_Occurred()).

AI Disclaimer: this gist was drafted by Claude Code, which also generated the reduced reproducer.

Crash report

Reading frame.f_back lazily materializes the parent PyFrameObject. Under OOM that allocation fails and sets MemoryError, but PyFrame_GetBack() does not check for it: it returns NULL, and frame_back_get_impl() interprets NULL as "no parent frame" and returns None successfully -- swallowing the pending exception. The LOAD_ATTR opcode therefore completes "successfully" with a MemoryError still set, and the next attribute lookup enters _PyType_LookupStackRefAndVersion, which asserts !PyErr_Occurred() and aborts. On release builds (assert compiled out) the dangling exception surfaces later as a spurious SystemError: ... returned a result with an exception set.

Reproducer

import sys, _testcapi, faulthandler
faulthandler.enable()
def walk():
    f = sys._getframe()
    while f is not None:
        f = f.f_back          # under OOM, materializing the parent frame fails:
                              # MemoryError is set but f.f_back returns None
_testcapi.set_nomemory(1, 0)  # fail every allocation from #1
try:
    try:
        walk()                # returns with a pending MemoryError after yielding None
        x = sys.maxsize       # next LOAD_ATTR -> _PyType_LookupStackRefAndVersion
                              # -> assert(!PyErr_Occurred()) fails -> SIGABRT
    finally:
        _testcapi.remove_mem_hooks()
except MemoryError:
    pass

Deterministic at start=1 on the free-threaded debug+ASan build (and on the JIT debug build). The frame-walk just guarantees at least one f.f_back access whose lazy PyFrameObject allocation fails; the trailing sys.maxsize is any subsequent LOAD_ATTR that then trips the assert.

Backtrace

#8  _PyType_LookupStackRefAndVersion   Objects/typeobject.c:6343   <- assert !PyErr_Occurred()
#9  _PyObject_GenericGetAttrWithDict    Objects/object.c:1919
#10 _PyObject_GetAttrStackRef           Objects/object.c:1369
#11 _PyEval_EvalFrameDefault            Python/generated_cases.c.h:8786   (LOAD_ATTR)
#12 _PyEval_Vector                      Python/ceval.c:2141
#13 PyEval_EvalCode                     Python/ceval.c:679

The faulting object is valid; the invariant violated is "no live exception on entry to a type lookup". (gdb) p (int)PyErr_Occurred() at frame 8 is nonzero (a MemoryError set during the previous frame.f_back).

Root cause

Objects/frameobject.c, PyFrame_GetBack() (L2395):

PyFrameObject*
PyFrame_GetBack(PyFrameObject *frame)
{
    PyFrameObject *back = frame->f_back;
    if (back == NULL) {
        _PyInterpreterFrame *prev = frame->f_frame->previous;
        prev = _PyFrame_GetFirstComplete(prev);
        if (prev) {
            back = _PyFrame_GetFrameObject(prev);   /* L2404: may fail + set MemoryError, returns NULL */
        }
    }
    return (PyFrameObject*)Py_XNewRef(back);          /* L2407: returns NULL, error NOT cleared/propagated */
}

_PyFrame_GetFrameObject() (Include/internal/pycore_interpframe.h:340) lazily creates the PyFrameObject via _PyFrame_MakeAndSetFrameObject(), whose PyObject_GC_New fails under OOM and returns NULL with MemoryError set. PyFrame_GetBack does not distinguish "no parent frame" (back == NULL, no error) from "allocation failed" (back == NULL, error set). The getter frame_back_get_impl() (Objects/frameobject.c:1116) then does:

    PyObject *res = (PyObject *)PyFrame_GetBack(self);
    if (res == NULL) {
        Py_RETURN_NONE;          /* L1118: treats the OOM failure as "top frame" -> None */
    }

So frame.f_back evaluates to None while a MemoryError is left pending. The LOAD_ATTR reports success; the next type lookup hits assert(!PyErr_Occurred()) (typeobject.c:6343). The defect is a swallowed/unpropagated exception, not a bad pointer.

Suggested fix

Propagate the allocation failure instead of masking it. In PyFrame_GetBack(), distinguish the error case:

        if (prev) {
            back = _PyFrame_GetFrameObject(prev);
            if (back == NULL) {
                return NULL;     /* MemoryError already set; let it propagate */
            }
        }

and in frame_back_get_impl() only convert a clean NULL to None:

    PyObject *res = (PyObject *)PyFrame_GetBack(self);
    if (res == NULL && !PyErr_Occurred()) {
        Py_RETURN_NONE;
    }
    return res;                  /* NULL with error set -> propagate */

This turns the OOM into a normal MemoryError raised from the f.f_back access, which the eval loop handles correctly.

Notes

Found by OOM-injection fuzzing (set_nomemory). The C defect is build-agnostic, but the symptom differs by build:

• ft_debug_asan: abort at the assert(!PyErr_Occurred()) (typeobject.c:6343).
• jit (debug, assertions on): identical abort at the same assertion.
• ft_release / upstream (-DNDEBUG, assert compiled out): no abort; the swallowed MemoryError instead surfaces later as SystemError: <built-in function ...> returned a result with an exception set (a dangling-exception symptom). Per the OOM-catalog convention for assert-based aborts, these are recorded as n/a.

The 16 fuzzer vehicles all abort at the identical typeobject.c:6343 assertion but via diverse stdlib stack-walkers that read frame.f_back: gettext._as_int2 (warning stacklevel walk), logging.findCaller, asyncio.format_helpers.extract_stack / traceback.walk_stack, argparse, optparse, and concurrent.futures. Each merely walks frames (for a warning or traceback) while a MemoryError is injected, so any subsequent LOAD_ATTR trips the assert. The same swallow-on-OOM pattern likely affects other lazy frame getters (f_globals/f_locals raise cleanly here, but f_back does not).

Versions

• main (3.16.0a0, commit 15d7406); aborts on the free-threaded debug+ASan build and the JIT debug build. Release/upstream builds: assertion compiled out (n/a); the bug instead leaks a MemoryError into an unrelated SystemError.

Part of python/cpython#151763 — an umbrella tracking 35 OOM-related crash findings.

CPython versions tested on:

3.16, CPython main branch

Operating systems tested on:

Windows

Output from running 'python -VV' on the command line:

Python 3.9.23 (main, Jun 4 2025, 08:55:39) [GCC 13.3.0]

Linked PRs

• gh-151905: fix assert(!PyErr_Occurred()) in _PyType_LookupStackRefAndVersion #151906
• [3.14] gh-151905: fix memory error handling in PyFrame_GetBack (GH-151906) #151918
• [3.15] gh-151905: fix memory error handling in PyFrame_GetBack (GH-151906) #151919
• [3.13] gh-151905: fix memory error handling in PyFrame_GetBack (GH-151906) #152065