It's rare these days, only sometimes you can nonetheless come across a cryptic error message while using your computer. Cryptic errors are ones that don't really explain themselves.

If y'all are lucky, you'll get an error reference number you tin await up, but in the case of the "Teaching at Referenced Memory Could Not Exist Read" mistake, you lot have no such luck.

This item error tin strike at any time, ofttimes without any clear cause. So if you're happily doing your affair on a PC and suddenly feel a software crash forth with this error, this guide volition set you on the path to recovery.

What Is This Error Exactly?

The actual text of the error is pretty self-explanatory. Information in RAM is stored at a specific address. When the software in question needs information stored at a particular address, information technology asks for it. Sometimes, for whatever reason, this process goes wrong. This mistake tells us that the accost is invalid for some reason.

What Causes The Error?

Now we get to the real problem. Although we know that an invalid memory address is involved, we have no thought why the memory address was invalid.

This is one of the reasons this particular error causes and then much grief. Information technology could be hardware, software or the phase of the moon. The proficient news is that, with a fleck of deduction and logic, tracking downward the gremlin responsible for your retentivity error woes is possible.

Doing Some Detective Work

Before we look at the specific fixes that can address this error, you demand to do a little preparation. After all, only trying everything is more likely to crusade new issues and won't necessarily signal you towards the true crusade of the effect.

The most important thing you lot have to do is notation when and how the error happens. Enquire yourself these questions:

  • Did it commencement happening later on a hardware or software modify?
  • Does it merely happen with one detail application?
  • Does it happen regardless of what you are doing?
  • Does it happen randomly, or at set intervals?

If you lot tin gather some circumstantial evidence, it might provide a clue as to which fixes are more than likely to piece of work. If only one item program gets this error, for example, then you are better off hitting up their technical back up page than messing around with your own computer willy-nilly.

Go on the specifics of your fault'south context in mind as we go over the various ways to brand this fault aught simply a distant memory.

The About Sensible Fixes

Since there are so many possible reasons for an invalid memory accost to cause a bit of balmy havoc, it makes sense to circular upwardly the most sensible fixes. There are quite a few of them, so starting with the ones nigh probable to be related to your specific error is the fashion to go.

If yous perform a ready that makes a change to your computer, remember to disengage it if information technology didn't take the problem away. If you don't, then you're introducing new variables that making eliminating possibilities harder. Exist systematic!

The Easiest Fix: Ignore It!

This is by far the easiest way to fix the problem, but ignoring the error only works if the cause of the issue is not systematic. Computers and the software that makes them useful is very complicated. Sometimes things go wrong just once or very rarely.

So if you see this error once and never again, don't fret about it. If y'all encounter it in one case every few weeks or months, it's besides probably non worth the try of addressing.

If the memory fault is disrupting mission-critical work or happens then often that it substantially hurts your user experience, and so of course y'all should investigate other solutions. The point is not to freak out about what might exist a very rare or perhaps fifty-fifty in one case-off bug.

More (Virtual) RAM Please

Virtual memory is a reserved part of your hard bulldoze that acts as an overflow for when your physical RAM chips are full. Oft when retentivity-hungry apps run out of RAM and take nowhere to put the boosted information, information technology gets lost. When a program asks for its information back, it's not there. Which leads to a crash or serious malfunction.

Memory management in modern operating systems is very good indeed and quality software products are too fabricated to piece of work efficiently with available RAM. Then in most cases virtual memory is never even needed. Nevertheless, programs with poor memory management or a besides-small virtual memory allocation for your system can lead to memory errors.

Y'all tin can add together more than physical RAM of course, but a quick (and complimentary!) solution is to optimize your virtual retentivity paging file. Just follow this guide and your applications will have enough room to exhale.

Close Background Applications

Another angle from which to tackle the same problem is reducing the corporeality of retentivity-hungry applications.

Your internet browser is the biggest culprit here. Every tab you lot open up in a browser like Google Chrome eats up a large chunk of RAM. It's pretty normal for someone to load upwardly a game and go out the browser or office suite software open in the background. If yous're curt on memory, closing some tabs or saving your piece of work and closing your productivity apps can exist a big aid.

Perchance y'all don't take programs running in the groundwork, at least non ones yous know of. It's a good thought to check how much of your computer'south memory is in apply when it'due south idle. Doing this could non be easier.

In Windows 10, viii or 7 but press CRTL+ALT+DEL and then click Task Manager.

If your Task Manager looks like this:

So click More Details to expand it.

Now, under the Processes tab, click on the Memory column to suit processes by retention utilise. Look for whatsoever processes that are using a large amount of memory. If they aren't critical, you tin can finish them by correct-clicking on a process and selecting End Chore.

Just be warned that if you don't know what a process is, y'all should Google information technology kickoff. If might be pretty important!

Plow Back Time

The terminal few versions of Windows, effectively back to Windows 7 in terms of which operating systems are yet in use today, have some pretty comprehensive recovery features. Specifically you lot can utilise Organisation Restore to whorl back major changes that have been made recently.

These tin can be Windows updates, driver installations or new software packages. If your retentivity error started popping up after something big enough to warrant a system restore point happened, it tin can't hurt to go back to before that bespeak to run across if the issue clears up.

In Windows x yous can restore your computer to an earlier betoken by doing the following:

  • First, search for Recovery in the Start Card.
  • Click on Recovery. Then click Open System Restore.

If any restore points were created before the changes you lot doubtable have brought on the fault, you can select them hither and so follow the instructions from Windows itself to complete the restoration process.

If things are actually dire, you should consider resetting Windows in order to restore information technology to a pristine state.

Adios a Software Culprit

If there is no restore bespeak that'due south appropriate and you accept reason to doubtable that a recently installed or updated program is the crusade of your memory errors, then simply uninstall it using the Add or Remove Programs function. You'll observe it in the Command Panel or past simply searching for it in the Beginning Menu.

Cheque For System File Corruption

If the memory mistake isn't being eliminated by one of the more mutual solutions, you can check your organization files for corruption past using a set of special commands.

Yous need to run the Organisation File Checker from the Command Prompt. That might audio intimidating if yous've never worked with the text-based Windows interface earlier, but if you lot follow this simple guide getting that repair process going is a doddle. In fact, it's a good addiction to employ the checker from fourth dimension to fourth dimension to preempt a variety of problems.

Utilise Cleaner Utilities to Remove Leftover Software Junk

In a perfect world software you remove, upgrade or update should make clean up after itself. In that location are many utilities out there that specialize in removing this crud where the standard uninstallers neglect.

For example, DDU is a popular utility that scrubs your system clean of GPU drivers. It'due south useful when anything graphics-related is causing issues. Java is as well a common invitee that just won't go out your computer the way it establish it. So much and so that there's an official Java removal guide.

Before you use whatever sort of cleanup utility, be sure to scan the software for malware with a service like VirusTotal and read some third-party reviews to make certain it's legitimate and effective.

Update Everything

Sometimes memory errors (and whatsoever other mistake really) tin can be the result of update mismatches. Your Windows installation might have updates automatically, but if your software packages and hardware drivers have non been updated to lucifer the new codebase, information technology may be a recipe for instability.

Commencement, you'll want to double bank check that Windows updates have been installed. Side by side you'll want to check that the program exhibiting the error has also been updated. You'll also desire to download the latest drivers for hardware like your graphics menu and motherboard.

Check Your Hardware Wellness

If software-based solutions don't seem to exist doing the play a joke on, the retention error might accept a more serious cause. While no one wants to hear that their computer hardware itself might be on the fritz, it's a possibility that you will have to eliminate.

Unsurprisingly, suspect number one is your RAM itself. Systematically checking your RAM for problems takes fourth dimension, just anyone can do it. Run across this splendid guide to checking for bad retentivity.

Fifty-fifty if yous've run the organization file checker discussed above, you may want to cheque the physical health of your difficult drive with CHKDSK just in case there are bad sectors or other concrete problems with it.

File a Complaint With Customer Support

When a "instruction at referenced retention could not be read" mistake is clearly the effect of a buggy piece of software, there may be only one course of action that will work – contacting the developers.

Bugs happen and if the game or software parcel is constantly crashing with this fault, information technology might non be something that you can do annihilation near. So pop an email to customer support, hit up the official forums and get some advice on whether you're missing something obvious or if it actually is a glitch in the Matrix.

Getting a Read On This Mutual Error

That was a long list of fixes, but there's no reason to permit this memory read error derail your piece of work or play.

Keep a cool head, cross the impossibilities from your list and before long you should exist back to normalcy.