Out of memory error kills opera

resnak · 02-07-2004, 07:23 PM

I'm using a PIII 400MHz with 192MB of RAM and 256MB swap and every 10 to 20 minutes Opera (or sometimes other programs) just closes all of a sudden. I checked /var/log/syslog and found this:

Code:

Feb  7 19:28:39 default kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 3803 (opera). 
Feb  7 19:28:39 default kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 3807 (opera). 
Feb  7 19:33:28 default kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 4009 (opera). 
Feb  7 19:33:28 default kernel: Out of Memory: Killed process 4020 (opera).

What I'm wondering is if I can just increase the swap space and fix the problem, if the only way is to get more RAM, or if something else altogether is the problem. If anyone has any suggestions on something that I can do to fix this it would be greatly appreciated.

resnak · 02-07-2004, 08:03 PM

I was doing some searching on other forums and found something else that may be pertinent. When I ran top I found that my swap wasn't being used at all. It was all cached. Here is what it shows:

Code:

Mem:   191708k av,  187308k used,    4400k free,       0k shrd,    2700k buff
        84220k active,              91920k inactive
Swap:       0k av,       0k used,       0k free                   28628k cached

hopefully this helps

DrOzz · 02-07-2004, 08:16 PM

ok you say you have a 256MB swap, but according to top its not on ...
if it was activated the line that states :
Swap: 0k av,
should actually read :
Swap: 262144k av,
or something similiar ..
so this could be partial if not all your problem (possibly?)

i still don't undertand though, just cause according to your info you have approx 117MB of ram unused ...

resnak · 02-07-2004, 08:24 PM

First, how do I activate the swap partition? Second, I think that the problem is that when I start a new program the available RAM gets used up by the new program and then Linux kills Opera. So, what I'm trying to say is, although not a necessarily high percentage of RAM is being used right now, it does jump up at certain times and overruns what is available.

DrOzz · 02-07-2004, 08:33 PM

well the command is :
/sbin/swapon <swap device>
(without the <> )

but i have no idea what your swap device is, and only you can figure that out ..
check your /etc/fstab file to see if its even listed in there, and if so then you will see the device you designated for it ... in my case /dev/hda2 ...

when your experiencing problems, or start to for that matter ... run top and see if you can see anything out of the ordinary ...

resnak · 02-07-2004, 08:49 PM

Okay, I found that my swap was also hda2 and so I ran

Code:

swapon /dev/hda2

and now the ouput of top is:

Code:

Mem:   191708k av,  185852k used,    5856k free,       0k shrd,    2688k buff         84348k active,              89984k inactive 
Swap:  257032k av,       0k used,  257032k free                   26576k cached

Hopefully this will fix my problem. Thank you very much for your help.

DrOzz · 02-07-2004, 08:53 PM

no problem, hopefully it works out for ya