Upper memory limit for PHP/Apache

Question

I'm getting the error when I run my PHP script....

Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 1827405824) (tried to allocate 88800 bytes)

I've added this line to my PHP script..

ini_set("memory_limit","3000M");

This statement does seem to correctly control the memory usage, but I dont seem to be able to get it above about 1.8GB. Its as if the upper memory limit is being restricted somewhere else. I've also added to the php.ini...

memory_limit = 3000M

Does anyone know if the memory is restricted elsewhere?

I'm running a local server with Xampp. I have Windows 7, 64-bit with 4GB RAM. My script uses PHP's GD image library and I get the error when trying to allocate an image reference with ImageCreateTrueColor().

(I know this is a huge amount of memory - but this is just a one-of script, and its just a lot easier to do it this way.)

Thanks.

Update....

@elusive @Orbling I expect everybody's bored whith this question, but here is the simplified code which illustrates the problem.

<?php
    ini_set("memory_limit","4000000000");
    echo "ini_get = " . ini_get('memory_limit') . "<br>\n";
    echo "memory_get_usage = " . memory_get_usage(true) . "<br>\n";
    $bigImageHandle = imagecreatetruecolor(22200, 24800);  //this is line 5
?>

Browser output...

ini_get = 4000000000
memory_get_usage = 524288

Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 1843396608) (tried to allocate 88800 bytes) in
E:\User\My_Webs\experiments\houseshunting\temp\osMaps\t1.php on line 5

I tested this out with a smaller set of tiles and the memory used by imagecreatetruecolor() and I estimate I need 2.7GB

Are you sure that you need such a huge amount of data at the same time? Are you composing an image out of thousands of other images? — jwueller
– jwueller, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 14:17
I agree with elusive. You are almost certainly doing something wrong to need that much mem. — DampeS8N
– DampeS8N, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 14:18
I am making a large image out of many small images. To do this I need to allocate a large image reference - which is causing the problem. Or are you suggesting that there is a way to combine many images together that doesnt require a large amount of memory? — spiderplant0
– spiderplant0, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 14:56
@spiderplant0: AFAIK, GD copies the contents of one of the small images onto your big image. You should be able to free the memory of the small image after you copied it. You can do this one image at a time and reduce the overall memory that is used simultaneously. The large image itself is no problem, since it is only about 88KB in memory. The problem is the (obviously) massive amout of small images that are all in memory at the same time. — jwueller
– jwueller, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 15:17
elusive, the structure of my code is: (1) read filenames of all small images into an array. (2) calculate size of big image and create a big image (imagecreatetruecolor). (3) open each small image in turn and merge into the big image (imagecopymerge). The memory usage after step 1 is only 1048576 Bytes. I get the memory fault during the creation of the big image - i.e. well before opening any of the small images — spiderplant0
– spiderplant0, Commented Dec 9, 2010 at 15:41

thenrion · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-24 11:56:04Z

12

Using Acquia Dev Desktop, I had many memory limit crashes.

After having increased the memory limit into PHP.ini.

php_value memory_limit                  1024M
php_value max_execution_time            3000

This issue was less frequent but still occuring ( Especially with Feature Recreate )

Into my httpd.conf I increased the StackThread to 16M

ThreadStackSize 16*1024*1024

And it solved the memory crash issue. Hope it can help

answered Jul 24, 2014 at 11:56

thenrion

1561 silver badge3 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Sven Over a year ago

Seems to solve my problem (Win7, 64bit, xampp) for this error message: VirtualAlloc() failed: [...] VirtualFree() failed: [...] [...]] PHP Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 98566144) (tried to allocate 16384 bytes) in [...]

Reece45 · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-25 16:25:40Z

You're running on a 64-bit operating system, but Apache and PHP are likely still 32-bit. If you're using mod_php, apache would be the limiting factor here.

32-bit processes are limited about 2GiB of RAM unless you used the /3GB switch and the software is aware of 3GB support.

That still leaves up about 200 MiB that seems unused, but its small enough that it can be used by various libraries that all have to be loaded in memory

As far as I know, the library usage won't show up in the committed memory, but still counts towards the 2GiB limit (much like device memory counts towards the 4GiB limit on 32-bit windows. Where installing 2 GiB graphics card brings you down to under 2GiB of usable RAM).

Most likely solution? Install a 64-bit PHP, and then dispatch it to that (using a system() call, perhaps)

fcva · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-25 18:03:05Z

3

In Ubuntu 18.04
Check version PHP: php -v
In my case I have PHP 7.4
Edit file: nano /etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini
Search and change memory_limit = 2048M
Edit file: nano /etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini
Search and change memory_limit = 2048M
Finally: systemctl restart apache2

edited Jan 25, 2022 at 18:03

answered Jul 27, 2020 at 1:13

fcva

4595 silver badges8 bronze badges

Comments

Orbling · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-09 14:17:39Z

1

Which PHP version are you using?

The memory_limit variable is, or was, contained in a 32-bit integer, so can not go above 2GB.

See: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=39132&edit=1

From the bottom comment on that bug report, it might be the routine that translates the human readable form to a number, try putting it in digits.

answered Dec 9, 2010 at 14:17

Orbling

20.7k4 gold badges56 silver badges64 bronze badges

9 Comments

Orbling Over a year ago

I assume you have the available memory? Have you tried setting it in the php.ini instead?

spiderplant0 Over a year ago

Yes I tried it in both places. I have 4GB physical RAM. According to the task manager 44% is in use before running script (though its dificult to say with windows superfetch). Though I thought it would just use pagefile cache if it ran out anyway?

Orbling Over a year ago

Hmm, well if it turns out the memory is going to be an issue. What are you attempting to do with the image? That error message suggested you had already allocated about 1.8GB of RAM within PHP.

spiderplant0 Over a year ago

Only 1048576 Bytes has been allocated prior to creating the big image. See reply to elusive above. I tried the script with a smaller set of images and it works fine.

Orbling Over a year ago

@spiderplant0 Are you running a 64bit version of PHP?

|

JTigger · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-29 00:54:42Z

Check your Apache config (e.g., httpd.conf). There's likely an RLimitMEM directive limiting the memory allow for children processes handling requests.

So, you can set your PHP limit all you want, if Apache spawns the process with a memory limit, you can't exceed that.

If you're on a hosted service and have a shared server, likely you don't have access to this config and need to work with your provider. As you can see, it's configuration that applies server-wide... you're not likely going to get them to change this. Then again, if you're looking to spawn bigger than 1.5Gig processes, you prolly should be either solving the problem a different way (others have suggested this) or getting a dedicated server of some kind (e.g. EC2).

For example:

/usr/local/apache/conf
#RLimitMEM 85643200 104857600   # Limit to: 80Mb / process, 100Mb total
RLimitMEM 134217728 537395200   # Limit to: 128Mb / Process, 512Mb total

Glitch Desire · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-20 10:28:02Z

1

The issue is likely to be caused by running 32-bit apache and php. Try upgrading these to 64-bit binaries and see if that fixes the issue.

answered Apr 20, 2013 at 10:28

Glitch Desire

15.1k7 gold badges46 silver badges55 bronze badges

Comments

Peter · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-25 18:11:25Z

0

I've had exactly the same problem and after searching a lot I discovered it had nothing to do wih memory limit but with a bug in my code: I had a function using an array, located in external file. In this function I had set the array as "global" but missed to include the file with tis array.... Like the spiderplant0's error, this was giving me an error with a very very huge memory allocation. So check your code and try to see which part create this error.

answered Jan 25, 2022 at 18:11

Peter

1,37621 silver badges36 bronze badges

Comments

Vahan Margaryan · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-09 14:17:45Z

-2

Try this

set_time_limit(300);
ini_set('memory_limit', '20000M');

answered Dec 9, 2010 at 14:17

Vahan Margaryan

3843 silver badges3 bronze badges

2 Comments

jwueller Over a year ago

Did you notice that you're suggesting 20 gigs? How is this supposed to work?

Serge Velikan Over a year ago

@jwueller it's supposed to work LIKE A CHARM 😁

Pops · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-09 21:28:32Z

-2

Try this:

#php_value memory_limit 300M 
#php_value upload_max_filesize 200M 
#php_value post_max_size 200M 
#php_value max_execution_time 80000 
#php_value max_input_time 80000

edited Feb 9, 2011 at 21:28

Pops

31k37 gold badges139 silver badges153 bronze badges

answered Dec 9, 2010 at 14:21

Pradeep Singh

3,6323 gold badges33 silver badges42 bronze badges

6 Comments

spiderplant0 Over a year ago

Where do I put these lines? Internet search suggests its for .htaccess? I dont seem to have this file in the xammp folder?

jwueller Over a year ago

@Pradeep Singh: Why did you put in the #, anyway?

spiderplant0 Over a year ago

I dont have an .htaccess file where should I create this file

Pradeep Singh Over a year ago

then In php.ini add upload_max_filesize=200M memory_limit=300M upload_max_filesize=200M post_max_size=200M max_execution_time=100000 max_input_time=100000

spiderplant0 Over a year ago

Thanks Pradeep Singh. But why the 300M etc? Did you mean 3000M?

|

Ivan Smorodin · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-22 06:47:39Z

-4

try ini_set('memory_limit', '-1');

answered Aug 22, 2014 at 6:47

Ivan Smorodin

1613 silver badges14 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Upper memory limit for PHP/Apache

10 Answers 10

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

9 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

6 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

10 Answers 10

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

9 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

6 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related