Java Refuses to Start - Could not reserve enough space for object heap

Question

Background

We have a pool of aproximately 20 linux blades. Some are running Suse, some are running Redhat. ALL share NAS space which contains the following 3 folders:

• /NAS/app/java - a symlink that points to an installation of a Java JDK. Currently version 1.5.0_10
• /NAS/app/lib - a symlink that points to a version of our application.
• /NAS/data - directory where our output is written

All our machines have 2 processors (hyperthreaded) with 4gb of physical memory and 4gb of swap space. We limit the number of 'jobs' each machine can process at a given time to 6 (this number likely needs to change, but that does not enter into the current problem so please ignore it for the time being).

Some of our jobs set a Max Heap size of 512mb, some others reserve a Max Heap size of 2048mb. Again, we realize we could go over our available memory if 6 jobs started on the same machine with the heap size set to 2048, but to our knowledge this has not yet occurred.

The Problem

Once and a while a Job will fail immediately with the following message:

Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

We used to chalk this up to too many jobs running at the same time on the same machine. The problem happened infrequently enough (MAYBE once a month) that we'd just restart it and everything would be fine.

The problem has recently gotten much worse. All of our jobs which request a max heap size of 2048m fail immediately almost every time and need to get restarted several times before completing.

We've gone out to individual machines and tried executing them manually with the same result.

Debugging

It turns out that the problem only exists for our SuSE boxes. The reason it has been happening more frequently is becuase we've been adding more machines, and the new ones are SuSE.

'cat /proc/version' on the SuSE boxes give us:

Linux version 2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 3.3.3 (SuSE Linux)) #1 SMP Mon Dec 12 18:32:25 UTC 2005

'cat /proc/version' on the RedHat boxes give us:

Linux version 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp ([email protected]) (gcc version 3.2.3 20030502 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.3-52)) #1 SMP Tue May 17 17:52:23 EDT 2005

'uname -a' gives us the following on BOTH types of machines:

UTC 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

No jobs are running on the machine, and no other processes are utilizing much memory. All of the processes currently running might be using 100mb total.

'top' currently shows the following:

Mem:   4146528k total,  3536360k used,   610168k free,   132136k buffers
Swap:  4194288k total,        0k used,  4194288k free,  3283908k cached

'vmstat' currently shows the following:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- ----cpu----
r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us sy id wa
0  0      0 610292 132136 3283908    0    0     0     2   26    15  0  0 100  0

If we kick off a job with the following command line (Max Heap of 1850mb) it starts fine:

java/bin/java -Xmx1850M -cp helloworld.jar HelloWorld
Hello World

If we bump up the max heap size to 1875mb it fails:

java/bin/java -Xmx1875M -cp helloworld.jar HelloWorld
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

It's quite clear that the memory currently being used is for Buffering/Caching and that's why so little is being displayed as 'free'. What isn't clear is why there is a magical 1850mb line where anything higher means Java can't start.

Any explanations would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hello,

What is the JVM used ? I know that BEA JRockit does not exceed 1850mB for max heap size. It does not fail but warns the user that it will not use more than 1850mB.

I don't know why there is such a limit but I know it exists for BEA JRockit.

Best regards.

Answer 2

This isn't anything to do with x86 architecture not being able to allocate that amount of memory to a single process is it?

Answer 3

This maybe way off the track, but there are two things that spring to mind. Both of the following assume that you are running a 32bit version of Linux.

There is a process size limit on linux, seem to remember on CentOS was around 2.5gb and is configured in the kernel (i.e. a recomple to change). Your process might be hitting that once you add up all the JVM code + Permgen space and all the rest of the JVM libraries.

The second thing is something I've come across that you may be running out of address space, sounds wierd I know. Had a problem running Glassfish with a 1.5Gb heap, when it tried to complie a JSP my forking javac it would fail because the OS couldn't allocate enough address space for the newly created process even though there was 12gb of memory in the box. There may be something similar going on here.

I'm afraid the only solutions to the above two where to upgrade to a 64bit kernel.

Hope this is of some use.

Answer 4

It seems that for 32-bit servers there is a JVM limitation that cannot be overcome (unless you find a special 32-bit JVM that does not impose a 2GB limit or less).

This thread on The Server Side has more details including several people who tested out various JVMs on 32-bit architectures. IBM's JVM seems to allow 100 more MB but that's not really going to get you what you want.

http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=26347

The "real" solution is to use a 64-bit server with a 64-bit JVM to get heaps larger than 2GB per process. However, it's important to also consider the impact of increasing your address size (not just the addressable space) by using a 64-bit JVM. There will likely be performance and memory impacts for processing using less than 4GB of memory.

Food for thought: do each of these jobs really require 2GB of memory? Is there any way for the jobs to be modified to run within 1.8GB so this limit is not a problem?

Answer 5

You're using a 32-bit OS, so you're going to be seeing limits on the total size due to that. Other answers have covered this in more detail, so I'll avoid repeating their information.

A behaviour that I noticed with our servers recently is that specifying a maximum heap size with -Xmx while not specifying a minimum heap size with -Xms would lead to Java's server VM immediately attempting to allocate all of the memory needed for the maximum heap size. And sure, if the app gets up to that heap size, that's the amount of memory that you'll need. But the chances are, your apps will be starting out with comparitively small heaps and may require the larger heap at some later point. Additionally specifying the minimum heap size will let you start your app start with a smaller heap and gradually grow that heap.

All of this isn't going to help you increase your maximum heap size, but I figured it might help, so...

Answer 6

ulimit max memory size and virtual memory set to unlimited?

Answer 7

Given that none of the other suggestions have worked (including many things I'd have suggested myself), to help troubleshoot further, could you try running:

sysctl -a

On both the SuSE and RedHat machines to see if there are any differences? I'm guessing the default configurations are different between these two distributions that's causing this.

Answer 8

Running a 32-bit OS is a mistake; you should definitely upgrade at the earliest convenience.

I don't know whether Java requires its heap to be in a single contiguous chunk, but if it does, asking for 1.8G of heap on a 32-bit box sounds like a tall order. You're assuming that there is a chunk of address space, almost half of it, free at JVM startup time.

Depending on what other libraries are loaded at the time, there may not be. Libraries can allocate memory anywhere they like, so it could fragment your address space sufficiently that 1.8G is not available in one chunk.

There is only about 3G address space max available on Linux 32-bit anyway. Libraries and the JVM itself uses some to start with.

Answer 9

As suggested in other responses the problem is causes by exhaustion of virtual address space. A 32bit linux userspace program is usually limited to 3GB of AS; the remaining 1GB is used by the kernel (rationale: since the top 1GB is kernel fixed mapping it's not necessary to touch the page table when serving syscalls).

RHEL kernels, however, implement the so called 4GB/4GB split where the full 4GB AS is available to userspace processes at cost of a slight runtime overhead (the kernel lives in a separate 4GB virtual AS)

Answer 10

Could someone help me to resolve my pb It was recently I have an application desktop in Eclipse version 6.8 And when I start the program they give me in the console the follow message : Could not create the Java virtual machine. Error occurred during initialization of VM Could not reserve enough space for object heap Java Result: 1 GÉNÉRATION TERMINÉE (durée totale  2 secondes)

Answer 11

You need to look at upgrading your OS and Java. Java 5.0 is EOL but if you cannot update to Java 6, you could use the latest patch level 22!

32-bit Windows is limited to ~ 1.3 GB so you are doing well to se the maximum to 1.8. Note: this is a problem with continous memory, and as your system runs its memory space can get fragmented so it does not suprise me you have this problem.

A 64-bit OS, doesn't have this problem as it has much more virtual space, you don't even have to upgrade to a 64-bit version of java to take advantage of this.

BTW, in my experience, 32-bit Java 5.0 can be faster than 64-bit Java 5.0. It wasn't until many years later that Java 6 update 10 was faster for 64-bit.

Answer 12

Hi, I got the same problem” could not reserve for enough space for jvm” while starting the eclipse. I have solved the problem like

Right click mycomputers->properties->advanced(tab)->Environment Variables--> Under system variable check the path Add the higher version of java to path at first Ex: C:\Program Files**Java\jdk1.6.0_07\bin**;C:\Perl\site\bin;C:\Perl\bin; C:\Program Files**Java\jdk1.5.0_16\bin**;

By K.V.N.R.Murali krishna