Fatal python error: Inconsistent interned string state

[Tim Peters]

[Jon]
> I've seen the previous msg about this error, and how it's only been
> reported once.  (Twice now)  And I have some other circumstances.
>
> I'm also receiving this error, on a windows 2000 platform.  The only
> thing is, I only get it when I call sys.exit( )
>
> The script is doing db reads/writes and some file manipulation, but
> nothing really tricky.
>
> If anyone has any ideas why this would happen, or knows if it's a
> really big deal or not, please let me know.

The only way it can happen is if some C code is doing a wild store,
corrupting memory it shouldn't be touching at all.  C code may be in
core Python, or in any extension modules you use.  Since reports of
this error remain so exceedingly rare, it's probably not in core
Python.  Are you using any extensions?  You really don't supply much
info here.

Wld stores are a big deal -- they can cause anything to happen. 
Python string objects happen to have a field that should contain only
one of 3 possible values.  You're getting the message because the
field doesn't have one of those 3 values.  That means some C code has
gone insane.