System out of memory exception error popup.

[wschong]

While i am compiling my project with about 500 topics (353MB), this error shown before the compilation complete.
Any solution? What is causing it? Or is this a bug?

[RamonS]

Although there are many reasons for this message to come up, one is the lack of memory. How much memory does the system have? Is the swap file large enough? Is there enough drive space left? Which OS?

[enricosavazzi]

I also get this and similar "out of memory" messages a lot, especially when building large projects. It seems Flare v4 has a serious memory management problem (which I did report as a bug). In my case, I have 2 GB of RAM, and over 1 GB is free as reported by Task Manager when the error occurs.

I found that Flare performs much better if I restart it immediately before building a large project. If I do any other work in Flare before building, there is a good chance that it will run out of memory. This trick works with Word output, but I am still unable to build a 300-page project with PDF output, even restarting Flare before building.

[Valiant]

I too have a rather large project with 400+ targets at four levels. Once in a while, building the entire project at once works, but most times it stops randomly somewhere in the generation (command line or from within Flare) with an "out of memory" error. Our company won't be upgrading from Flare 3.1 to 4.0 until this project is released but I see the 4.0 users continue to have this problem as well.

I've been forced to use the a batch file on the command line to build:
First the low level targets
Then the next level up
Then the next level
and finally the main level.

I build one target at a time so when the upper level ones build they only copy the lower level ones into the subsystems folder instead of generating them.

This solution has bypassed the "out of memory" error for now but may be causing up problems with Feedback Server (detailed in another topic). But it seems Flare isn't adequately prepared for massive projects.

[helen]

I'm still getting this error despite having 4GB RAM and a 10GB Swap file which Windows does not manage - hence I suspect it's not as it looks. I've noticed with my huge project that performance goes to the wall unless I restart after each build. There seems to be some memory leak issues around this but it's rather random irritatingly.

[NorthEast]

I'm still getting this error despite having 4GB RAM and a 10GB Swap file

Yep, I have also had this problem with my larger projects (2000 topics) and have the same spec as you. It definitely does seem to work better if you close and then open Flare again. When I start Flare with no project open it uses about 100MB, but after a long session it can use up to about 600MB with no project open. When I get this memory build-up then I'll usually get an out-of-memory error during a build.

[wijnand]

The Exception your getting is sadly something I am not getting (yet) but I do know that error from my own developing.

.NET has a garbage collection built in that removes memory leaks but sometimes the way garbage collection is done can cause problems. I am not good at explaining it, but this MSDN log explains the exception you are seeing:

https://blogs.msdn.com/yunjin/archive/2 ... 63642.aspx

[Andrew]

I'm still getting this error despite having 4GB RAM and a 10GB Swap file which Windows does not manage - hence I suspect it's not as it looks. I've noticed with my huge project that performance goes to the wall unless I restart after each build. There seems to be some memory leak issues around this but it's rather random irritatingly.

4GB of RAM and 10GB of page file space is largely irrelevant, unless you are running a ton of other memory-sucking applications. Flare can only address 2GB of virtual memory, and if it runs out of that, you'll see a memory exception.

Does anyone know if Flare has the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set? Eh, I should probably ask Support. If so, if you boot your computer using the /3GB switch, you should get more virtual memory for Flare (3GB instead of 2GB). But do beware: sometimes the /3GB switch can cause certain programs to behave differently.

[helen]

I'm still getting this error despite having 4GB RAM and a 10GB Swap file which Windows does not manage - hence I suspect it's not as it looks. I've noticed with my huge project that performance goes to the wall unless I restart after each build. There seems to be some memory leak issues around this but it's rather random irritatingly.

4GB of RAM and 10GB of page file space is largely irrelevant, unless you are running a ton of other memory-sucking applications. Flare can only address 2GB of virtual memory, and if it runs out of that, you'll see a memory exception.

Does anyone know if Flare has the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set? Eh, I should probably ask Support. If so, if you boot your computer using the /3GB switch, you should get more virtual memory for Flare (3GB instead of 2GB). But do beware: sometimes the /3GB switch can cause certain programs to behave differently.

I was aware that Flare can only address 2GB of RAM, but I didn't realise virtual memory is restricted to 2GB too - I thought that was the whole point of VM?

Edit - Never mind, one of the developers has explained it to me. So I guess Flare leaks then!

[wijnand]

I am not a Madcap Developer

unless someone else told you over a PM. I am just a programmer who also happens to know a bit of .NET. and the possibile soltuion I gave might not be the answer, the anoying thing about computers. The errors you are getting can be a combination of things. but this is what my situation was at the time.

[Andrew]

Does anyone know if Flare has the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag set? Eh, I should probably ask Support. If so, if you boot your computer using the /3GB switch, you should get more virtual memory for Flare (3GB instead of 2GB). But do beware: sometimes the /3GB switch can cause certain programs to behave differently.

According to MadCap Support, Flare does not support /LARGEADDRESSAWARE. Ah well.

[Ineffable]

I get the same Out of Memory errors like the ones described, except mine only happen in command-line output.

Win XP SP3; 1.8GB RAM; 21GB HDD (Running on VMWare Fusion)

[Andrew]

Which operating system are the out of memory errors coming from? I assume the guest OS? If so, have you tried increasing the size of the pagefile (assuming your VHD can support more size...it's possible that you need to increase the size of the VHD)?

[MarkMetcalfe]

Here is a 2010 update:

I have Flare 6.1.0 and also get the Out of Memory error. (I'll try building right after launching the program, but it seems to be hit or miss for me.)

My project is large (almost 3000 pages in PDF format) but I have 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit Windows 7 system. When it builds, I can build it in 35 minutes. My colleagues takes 3x longer on their XP machines with less memory (but do not get the out of memory error).

I am surprised to hear that this has been going on since version 3.

Mark Metcalfe
Ektron Documentation Manager

[RamonS]

I know others tend to disagree, but 4GB of RAM for Windows 7 is just not enough when running such large tasks on top of it. Unfortunately, there is no point in adding more RAM on a 32bit system.

[donpedro]

solution: make a dedicated 64-bit version, so we can compile out projects in no time!

[joy]

I'm getting this error today every time I try to build a project to PDF (Windows 7, Flare 6.1). I have 8 GB of RAM so my computer is not the issue. My project is similar in size to MarkMetcalfe's.

I've also seen this error with Word output on a Win XP machine. One of the reasons I got a new computer is that Madcap Support could build the project at that time, and I couldn't. And now it's happening again -- same project, same problem, brand-new machine.

[joy]

Thought I would post Madcap support's response in case anyone else has a similar issue. Unfortunately I have never read about any limitations to the number of topics that Flare can process, but it seems that there is such a thing as too many topics. I ported this from FrameMaker to Flare, so I'm not too happy. It won't generate one PDF or even multiple Word files without throwing this error.

I still haven't tested this with multiple TOCs because I think I won't get the output that I want anyway -- I need one TOC in my output PDF. Overall, this has thrown a monkey wrench into our release documentation, and I'm spending all of my time trying to wrestle with Flare. I'd much rather see a patch than "hopefully this issue will be addressed in the next version of Flare".

Yes, the main problem is the size of the TOC (5300 entries) and that the majority is set as "Chapter". Unfortunately, this is a physical limitation of Flare, the resulting PDF for this Target will be about 6K topics so when pagination is being generated, Flare cannot handle this many topics.
I have passed this issue to our development department as a bug [...].

Hopefully, this issue will be addressed in the next version of Flare. For now, as a workaround, splitting the TOC into multiple TOCs will work.

[wclass]

... I still haven't tested this with multiple TOCs because I think I won't get the output that I want anyway -- I need one TOC in my output PDF.

... For now, as a workaround, splitting the TOC into multiple TOCs will work.

It's worth a try. I've tried multiple TOCs for one output and it works quite well. You can create many TOCs and one main one, and then just drag a TOC into the main one at the right place - and to the final output it looks like just one TOC. For what it's worth, I like this method when I have multiple targets with similar topics - it is easier to include what I want rather than put TOC conditions on.

[joy]

It's worth a try. I've tried multiple TOCs for one output and it works quite well. You can create many TOCs and one main one, and then just drag a TOC into the main one at the right place - and to the final output it looks like just one TOC. For what it's worth, I like this method when I have multiple targets with similar topics - it is easier to include what I want rather than put TOC conditions on.

Thanks for your response. I did try it and it worked -- it's not an ideal solution for this project but I'll take what I can get at this point!

Interesting note about conditions, however: I have a few projects like that and never thought to try this approach. Seems lile a much cleaner alternative. Thanks for the pointer.

[rjhoughton]

I'm getting this error popup too, but didn't get it until Flare 7.

Looks like I need to split my TOC. The entire TOC will still show in printed output, correct? I don't want to split the TOC and then find out it doesn't work (this is a 1000 page PDF, covering ~2600 topics).

Rachel

[joy]

I'm getting this error popup too, but didn't get it until Flare 7.

Looks like I need to split my TOC. The entire TOC will still show in printed output, correct? I don't want to split the TOC and then find out it doesn't work (this is a 1000 page PDF, covering ~2600 topics).

It did for me and mine is now about 5K topics. You just have to drag TOC #2 from the TOC folder to the correct spot in TOC #1.

[pandiarajank]

Hi,

I've got "Internal Error: Out of Memory" when I tried to build a word output (could be more than 200 pages).

Error exists in Flare 7 and Flare 8!!

What is the better solution to fix this issue?

Note: I'm running Windows XP 32bit, 2GB RAM, Flare 7.

Thanks,
Pandiarajan K

[RamonS]

What other applications are you running? I'd try to shut down as many other apps as possible and thus free up as much memory as you can.

[pandiarajank]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm just running Flare. No other applications were opened.


Thanks,
Pandiarajan K