@gabrielesvelto yes, i know the memory error thread, thank you. ECC absolutely is a must and in this regard i am glad that my code (usually) does not run on consumer devices. fwiw, relying on every single bit in a multi-tb ram system still feels scary at times, and it is amazing that these machines actually work.
thank you for the links!

@gabrielesvelto thank you for this great, informative overview.
numerous times, i had asked myself if a reported crash could be caused by a hardware bug, and so far i would think i never saw a real case - possibly due to the software i work on running in more controlled environments.
but i would be curious how a crash from a real hardware bug could be classified automatically. do you have pointers to foss tools?