PHP Composer update “cannot allocate memory” error

Question

I just can't solve this one.

I'm on Linode 1G RAM basic plan. Trying to install a package via Composer and it's not letting me. My memory limit is set to "-1" on PHP.ini

Is there anything else I can do to get this installed?

Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies (including require-dev)
  - Installing thujohn/rss (dev-master df80a7d)
    Downloading: 100%         
PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:975
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Composer\Util\ErrorHandler::handle(2, 'proc_open(): fo...', 'phar:///usr/loc...', 975, Array)
#1 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(975): proc_open('stty -a | grep ...', Array, NULL, NULL, NULL, Array)
#2 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(853): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getSttyColumns()
#3 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(818): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalDimensions()
#4 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(752): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalWidth()
#5 phar:///usr/local/bin/com in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php on line 975

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:975
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Composer\Util\ErrorHandler::handle(2, 'proc_open(): fo...', 'phar:///usr/loc...', 975, Array)
#1 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(975): proc_open('stty -a | grep ...', Array, NULL, NULL, NULL, Array)
#2 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(853): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getSttyColumns()
#3 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(818): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalDimensions()
#4 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(752): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalWidth()
#5 phar:///usr/local/bin/com in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php on line 975

Answer 1

Here is the workaround that I found that works for me every time:

df -h 
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=1024
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=1024
mkswap /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
echo 'echo "/swapfile  none  swap  defaults  0  0" >> /etc/fstab' | sudo sh

free -m

confirm u see your swap there:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 494 335 158 0 19 62
-/+ buffers/cache: 254 240
Swap: 1023 3 1020

watch free -m

Answer 2

Make a swap and run composer command again. I hope it'll work for you.

 $ dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=512k
 $ mkswap /swapfile
 $ swapon /swapfile
 $ echo "/swapfile       none    swap    sw      0       0 " >> /etc/fstab
 $ echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
 $ chown root:root /swapfile
 $ chmod 0600 /swapfile

Answer 3

Try

it's basically raising the swap memory

sudo /bin/dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.1 bs=1M count=1024 && sudo /sbin/mkswap /var/swap.1 && sudo /sbin/swapon /var/swap.1

Answer 4

edit php.ini file and increase memory_limit value.

memory_limit=1G

will solve this issue.

Answer 5

I have faced the same issue. I am on a AWS Free Microinstance which has less memory. I always try one of the below options and it always works (Before all this please check if you have the latest version of composer installed)

sudo php -dmemory_limit=750M composer.phar update

or remove the contents of the vendor folder and try composer update.

sudo rm -rf vendor
sudo php -dmemory_limit=750M composer.phar update --no-scripts --prefer-dist
sudo php artisan --dump-autoload

The second option tries to update all the components, if there is no update, it picks up the package from the cache else picks up from the dist

Note: Please change the memory limit as per your choice.

or

Create a swap partition and try. Swap partition is the portion of the hard drive that linux uses as virtual memory when it runs out of physical memory. It's similar to the windows swap file only instead of using an actual file, linux uses a partition on the hard drive instead.

Hope this helps

Answer 6

Easy, type this commands:

rm -rf vendor/

rm -rf composer.lock

php composer install --prefer-dist

Should work for low memory machines