kern-exec 3 panic?

[samweb]

I have a problem in my code and I don't know how to fix it. The problem appears only in target device.
Here is the fuction what causes the kern-exec 3 panic in my target device. aBuffer is a message which comes from the socket. It contains variable number of submessages which starts with ** and end with *
(example aBuffer = **submessage***submessage*.. and so on). Every submessage contains a struct and when the submessage is handled the information what is in it is sended to DecodeMessage().

Code:
void CWorkReporterEngine::HandleMessage(const TDesC8 &aBuffer)
{
TInt i = 0;
TInt msgLength;
TInt start;

while(i < aBuffer.Length())
{
start = 2;

while(start) //Search start of submessage '**'
{
if(i == aBuffer.Length()-1)
return;
if(aBuffer[i++] == 0x2a)
if(aBuffer[i++] == 0x2a)
start = 0;
}

MESSAGE_HEADER* resp = NULL;
resp = (MESSAGE_HEADER*) &aBuffer[i]; //causes kern-exec 3 panic

if(resp)
msgLength = resp->uTotalLength;
else
return;

TPtrC8 theMsg(aBuffer.Mid(i, msgLength));
i += msgLength;

if(aBuffer[i] == 0x2a) //Search end of submessage '*'
{
i++;
DecodeMessage(theMsg, resp->uMessageID);
}
}

iSocketsEngine->ContinueReading();
iTimer->Cancel();
iTimer->After(KTimeOut);
}

Problem is that, when the execution goes to second round of the while loop and the i happends to be uneven dereferencing of resp causes a panic and that is because the uTotalLength is on the previous round even. When i is even there is no problem. Problem happends because the resp isn't a 32-bit multiple and that's why the code is valid in the emulator.

The declaration of MESSAGE_HEADER is
Code:

typedef struct
{
TUint16 uTotalLength;
TUint16 uMessageID;
} MESSAGE_HEADER;

I have tried the Mem::Copy thing what is presented in "Developer Library/Tools and Utilities/Build tools guide/The native build targets". But still my code doesn't work in target.

Only thing what I could do is that I modify my server-side code and make my messages uTotalLength be always uneven. But that isn't so great idea.

But how I can fix this problem an make code work in target device?

[laa-laa]

Yes, it's definitely a memory alignment issue. x86 does not care about alignment (although accessing unaligned addresses is slower due to multiple reads/writes) while the ARM version raises an exception that manifests as KERN-EXEC 3.

Mem::Copy() if done right will help. Please tell what you have tried. Another common way to make it work is to wrap the message object in a TPckgBuf.

Lauri