title: Is Python ever supposed to crash?
body: <p>I am running a stand-alone Python v3.2.2/Tkinter program on Windows, not calling any external libraries.  Idle has been very helpful in reporting exceptions, and the program has been debugged to the point where none are reported.   However, the python interpreter does occasionally crash at non-deterministic times - operations will run fine for a while and then suddenly hang.  The crash triggers the standard Windows non-responding process dialog asking if I want to send a crash dump to Microsoft:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"pythonw.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.
   We are sorry for the inconvenience."
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1964336/crash-reporting-in-python">Crash reporting in Python</a> says that the interpreter itself rarely crashes.  My question is: no matter how many mistakes there are in a python script, is there any way it should in theory be able to crash the interpreter?  Since there are no exceptions being reported and the crashes happen at random times, it's hard to narrow down.  But if the interpreter is in theory supposed to be crash-proof, then something I'm doing is triggering a bug.</p>
  
  <p>The code (a scrolling strip-chart demonstration) is posted at <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/457246/what-is-the-best-real-time-plotting-widget-for-wxpython/7605072#7605072">What is the best real time plotting widget for wxPython?</a>.  It has 3 buttons - Run, Stop, Reset.  To cause a crash just press the buttons in random order for a minute or so.  With no interaction, the demo will run forever without crashing.</p>