A page fault is an error that occurs when a program references a page of memory that is not currently available in the main memory. This happens when a page of memory has been swapped out to disk or is not present in physical memory, and the program tries to access that page. When this occurs, the operating system must retrieve the page from disk and load it into physical memory before the program can continue its execution. A high rate of page faults can significantly slow down the performance of a program and the overall system.
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