This might actually be a perl autovivify bug. Check this out:

use strict;

my $ref;
$ref->{'hash'}->[0]->{'hash2'}->{'hash3'} = 'go go gadget autovivify!'
+;
print $ref->{'hash'}->{'hash2'}->{'hash3'};
[download]

Produces 'Out of memory!' when ran

While this:

use strict;

my $ref;
$ref->{'hash'}->[0]->{'hash2'} = 'go go gadget autovivify!';
print $ref->{'hash'}->{'hash2'};
[download]

produces 'Bad index while coercing array into hash at t3.pl line 6.'

I tried a couple of different combinations, the trick to making it barf is to have TWO or more levels of referencing after the one you reference incorrectly.

This is Perl 5.6.1 on Redhat Linux 7.2

/\/\averick
perl -l -e "eval pack('h*','072796e6470272f2c5f2c5166756279636b672');"