Re: Running out of memory or system resources for no apparent reason

It was a shot, but it didn't help.

I just reproduced the problem on my 1.5GB server. Plenty of capacity,
plenty of drive space.

This time, I had to use outlook to open a whopping 73 new message windows,
but it refused to create a 74th, giving the same error message as on my
other machine. At this time, the other symptoms are present as well.

Looking at process explorer system information, *none* of the stats changed
significantly before and after opening 73 new message windows. The biggest
change was Current/Limit commit charge went up from 62.94% to 63.88%,
clearly not a factor. On this machine kernel memory shows 84/360 Paged
Virtual usage, which blows my theory about fragmented kernel memory out of
the window. The operations I'm performing place little or no demands on
kernel memory.

I submit that *anyone* can reproduce this, using Outlook 2003 with Wordmail
enabled (probably any application will do, it's just a matter of stressing
it a bit). Just create new messages until it won't do it anymore (sometimes
it can't even display the inaccurate error message dialog). At this point
you can play around with the system and observe other symptoms. But now the
challenge: figure out what "resources" it is running out of. Process
Explorer can't seem to tell you.

Clearly, not being able to create 75 new message windows isn't a big deal.
But it's useful being able to reproduce this on demand, so I can have a
chance figure out what is preventing me from creating even one when I need
to.

Thanks,
John


"Bob I" <birelan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23lAuKm2eGHA.4828@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My money is on the "temporary internet files" "folder", try clearing that
and see what happens.

johndog wrote:
I have a frustrating recurring problem on my machine, running XP SP2, of
apparently running out of memory or system resources, when as far as I
can tell there should be plenty of them.

I have 1GB of memory, and use a 1.5GB swap file (I've set a limit at
2GB). When the problem shows, Process Explorer typically shows VM at
around a 50% committed state, and shows that plenty of physical memory is
available (100+MB). It shows the kernel pools decently far from their
limits (Paged 130/160MB, Non-Paged 38/210MB). And my hard drives all
have at least 5GB free. Again, these stats are taken as I am looking at
an error message that says an application couldn't do something.

To trigger the problem, I can do something like the following:

- Fill the taskbar with my typical array of programs; a couple of IDEs
and source editors, Microsoft outlook, some build windows, MSDN, 5-6 IE
windows, etc.
- In outlook, Hit Ctrl+N to create a new message 5-6 times until it
yields an error that is presumably due to running out of resources (the
error message is usually more ambiguous).

At this point, I can launch practically nothing in the system
successfully. I can launch a script, but createprocess on cmd.exe will
fail, usually due to an obscure reason like a failure to load a DLL. I
can launch task manager, but it may fail, or it may create the main
window with controls or entire tabs missing. Windows may fail to paint,
etc, etc.

With all the windowing issues, I used to suspect driver involvement
(since supposedly GDI has no limits in XP), but when cmd.exe fails to
create, I have to conclude it's even closer to the kernel than that.

I've read that the kernel has a virtual memory limit that is calculated
on bootup, and not dynamically resizable. Is it possible the kernel
memory is so insanely fragmented at this point that it can't satisfy
basic program needs? Is the 30MB clearance (nearly 20%) possibly not
enough? Are there any tools that will show or visualize virtual memory
fragmentation?

What else could the problem be?



Thanks,
John



.

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