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 @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. 

[sameerpremji]

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 

[sameerpremji]

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?

[JoeS]

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. 

[sameerpremji]

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.

[CristianoJ]

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-D...

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Server-Knowledge-Base/Alteryx-Server-System-Settings-Deep-D...