ORA-04030: out of process memory when trying to allocate 123416 bytes (QERHJ hash-joi,kllcqas:kllsltba)

Hello Every one,


Recently we'd faced ORA-04030 errors in one of our customer alert log. Customer running on 11.2.0.4 database with 12.1.3 application. So it is expected few bugs in it. We've identified many ML Docs and didn't find exact hint. Hence we had to raise an SR with oracle and finally they came with solution.

There could be several reasons why these errors triggered. Generally  ORA-04030 can be caused by RAM  shortage on non shared server environment, that means oracle processes couldn't get enough amount of RAM to complete it operation  and more over instance having small PGA set , So we need to look at memory structure and set correct parameters as per ML DOC (396009.1) for 11g instance  and also it cause  by not setting enough kernel parameters  to allow enough RAM for processes when running.. 

From alert log
========


ORA-04030: out of process memory when trying to allocate 123416 bytes (QERHJ hash-joi,kllcqas:kllsltba)
ORA-04030: out of process memory when trying to allocate 96 bytes (kkqcs.c.kgght,kkqcs.c.kgght)
ORA-19202: Error occurred in XML processing
ORA-06503: PL/SQL: Function returned without value
ORA-06512: at "APPS.XXAS_COM_HIER_PKG", line 2767


By looking above alert log errors, we dig further and identified a custom package execution taking more PGA memory and finally failed with errors. We can involve developer to tune that package.


We checked same with oracle by providing them a trace and incident file and solutions given as


ACTION PLAN:
==============
1. On OS side edit /etc/sysctl.conf. Add or edit the following line:
vm.max_map_count = 262120
Save the file and load sysctl configuration
$ sysctl -p
Log out and log in again.
2. On database, set hidden parameter _realfree_heap_pagesize_hint:
alter system set "_realfree_heap_pagesize_hint" = 262144 scope=spfile;
Bounce database to reflect changes.


Thanks,
Sreeharsha