Server Error - Unable to allocate memory for temp files

[johnyd01]

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.

[JoeS]

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

[johnyd01]

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.

[johnyd01]

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

[johnyd01]

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.

[JoeS]

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.

[johnyd01]

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.

[JoeS · Accepted solution]

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.

[johnyd01]

That makes a lot of sense doesn't it!

Thanks Joe.

[sameerpremji]

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