This happens when the pointer passed to free() is not valid or has been modified somehow. I don’t really know the details here. The bottom line is that the pointer passed to free() must be the same as returned by malloc(), realloc() and their friends. It’s not always easy to spot what the problem is for a novice in their own code or even deeper in a library. In my case, it was a simple case of an undefined (uninitialized) pointer related to branching.
The free() function frees the memory space pointed to by ptr, which must have been returned by a previous call to malloc(), calloc() or realloc(). Otherwise, or if free(ptr) has already been called before, undefined behavior occurs. If ptr is NULL, no operation is performed. GNU 2012-05-10 MALLOC(3)
char *words; // setting this to NULL would have prevented the issue
if (condition) {
words = malloc( 512 );
/* calling free sometime later works here */
free(words)
} else {
/* do not allocate words in this branch */
}
/* free(words); -- error here --
*** glibc detected *** ./bin: munmap_chunk(): invalid pointer: 0xb________ ***/
There are many similar questions here about the related free() and rellocate() functions. Some notable answers providing more details:
*** glibc detected *** free(): invalid next size (normal): 0x0a03c978 ***
*** glibc detected *** sendip: free(): invalid next size (normal): 0x09da25e8 ***
glibc detected, realloc(): invalid pointer
IMHO running everything in a debugger (Valgrind) is not the best option because errors like this are often caused by inept or novice programmers. It’s more productive to figure out the issue manually and learn how to avoid it in the future.