topic Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files in Alteryx Server Discussions

Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 10:02:22 GMT

Hi all,

On a daily basis, we're receiving "Unable to allocate memory for temp files" when running workflows on Alteryx Server 2018.4. I've looked through the community, but I can't actually see the issue has been resolved.

Does anyone have a definitive reason for, and / or, solution to, this particular issue? While the message seems to be quite self-explanatory, there's nothing obvious on the server that indicates any resource related issues.

Appreciate the feedback.

Cheers,

John.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

JoeS — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 10:11:52 GMT

Hi @johnyd01

Within your system settings on the server, what location to you have set for the Temporary Directory of the Engine General tab?

And then what space do you have on that drive?

Also, what is the Default sort/join set to and what amount of RAM do you have on the server?

Thanks

Joe

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 10:31:19 GMT

Joe, thanks for replying so quickly - appreciated.

I've asked the server boffins to answer some of those questions for me.

I am told, that within the "Worker Configuration" settings on the server, that the Sort/Join is set to 43Gb. Apparently, the whole server has 512Gb.

Will reply when I know more on the other elements.

Thanks again.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 10:43:59 GMT

Image relating to 43Gb - assume this is the same configuration setting you referred to Joe.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 11:41:18 GMT

Hi,

Getting the facts now:

Engine Configuration, Temporary Directory is on E:\Alteryx\Engine.

The E drive is a SAN, with 420Gb free.

Contrary to my post before, I've been advised that the "Default sort/join memory usage (MB)" is 13016.

The server is currently running at 2% memory used.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

JoeS — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 10:00:05 GMT

Hi @johnyd01

That's odd that they sent the screen shot and have now told you it's different.

I'd be keen to see an screenshot of the system settings pages; Worker - General and Engine General.

Also, It sounds like you have a beast of a machine, so I wouldn't be expecting these errors. If I could also get a screenshot of the performance tab within task manager.

I can then check how things are aligned and give a recommendation from there.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 11:26:57 GMT

Hi Joe,

I’m sorry for dropping off the radar on this one – the technical guys here made the following change last week:

“We lowered the default sort/join malloc to 16G from 126GB that was initially”.

Since that time, all workflows have been running fine.

Joe, thanks for your help.

Thanks,

John.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

JoeS — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:18:49 GMT

Hi John,

No problem thanks for replying.

If you are interested the reason for the failures is what happened beforehand is effectively saying....

"here Alteryx you can use 126GB RAM" Then when it tried to use it, it wasn't able to get it, so failed.

Now the limit is set to resources available the error no longer occurs.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

johnyd01 — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 15:15:22 GMT

That makes a lot of sense doesn't it!

Thanks Joe.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

sameerpremji — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 19:17:11 GMT

Hi @JoeS ,

We recently upgraded to 2021.1 from 2020.3 and I'm starting to get the following errors in a few workflows:-

00:00:00.707 - Error - ToolId 6: Unable to allocate memory

00:00:00.708 - Error - ToolId 6: Unable to allocate memory for temp files.

We have a single Windows Server 2016 Standard worker with 16GB RAM and 4 cores.

Here are the screenshots of our configuration, however, I do not see Sort/Join memory setting anywhere, perhaps, it may have been removed in the newer version but I'm curious to hear from you what could be causing the above errors.

The D:\ drive has 173GB free disk space out of 249GB total space.

Please help!

@jason_scarlett @klonergan

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

JoeS — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 19:59:24 GMT

Hi @sameerpremji

You are right. It appears to be the same thing. The only subtle difference is that the later versions of Alteryx it’s the memory limit setting on the third screenshot.

You have configured 4 to run at once and set the memory limit at 8GB a workflow. Thus would need 32GB available on the server to suffice those requirements. To add that’s 32GB available after running things like Windows, Alteryx Gallery, anti-virus etc etc

It also gets a little more complex as I can see you have both engines enabled.

We don’t recommend having more than 1 simultaneous workflow set if you are running the AMP engine as a single flow can consume all the resource on the machine/server.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

sameerpremji — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:19:13 GMT

Thanks @JoeS for your quick response.

I will discuss your recommendations with the right folks and make these changes.

Will keep you posted if it resolves our errors or not.

Appreciate it!

@jason_scarlett @klonergan

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

sameerpremji — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:46:44 GMT

Hi @JoeS ,

Based on your comments, do you mean that the AMP Engine, if enabled, ignores the Memory Limit per workflow by consuming all the RAM resources on the server?

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

JoeS — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:55:06 GMT

It’s more the CPU usage with AMP that means it can only be one at any given time.

As there is the potential for one AMP workflow to pin all CPU cores to 100%. Thus not recommending allowing multiple at once to create an issue.

It will abide by that memory limit though.

I would always recommend running Alteryx Server on a 32GB machine as well. As it should really help with performance. As typically Windows and other utilities and applications will use a good 8GB just while the machine effectively idles.

So you only have 8GB left for workflows to begin with.
If you increase to 32GB in total on the machine you have effectively tripled the RAM available for workflows due to the above.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

sameerpremji — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 21:07:17 GMT

Thanks for the clarification @JoeS .

We will see if we can upgrade the RAM to 32GB as per your recommendations.

In the interim, we have tweaked the setting for Memory Limit to 3072 MB (3GB) per workflow with 4 as number of processing threads, which would result in 12GB RAM consumption out of 16GB RAM total memory on the server, leaving the server with 4GB RAM to deal with other non-Alteryx related operations.

Re: Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

CristianoJ — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 14:21:19 GMT

I recommend you use the articles below for guidance on how to properly configure Alteryx System Settings - worker and engine configuration:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Alteryx-Server-System-Settings-Deep-Dive-Worker/ta-p/500127

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Alteryx-Server-System-Settings-Deep-Dive-Engine/ta-p/421508