GC overhead limit exceeded when building android s

Question

****[ 35% 11837/33004] build out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack 

FAILED:/bin/bash -c 
"
(mkdir -p out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/) 
&& (java -Xmx3500m -jar out/host/linux-x86/framework/jill.jar --output out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.jack prebuilts/sdk/21/android.jar) 
&& (mkdir -p out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.res) 
&& (unzip -qo prebuilts/sdk/21/android.jar -d out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.res) 
&& (find out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.res -iname \"*.class\" -delete) 
&& (JACK_VERSION=2.26.RELEASE out/host/linux-x86/bin/jack @build/core/jack-default.args --verbose error -D jack.import.resource.policy=keep-first -D jack.import.type.policy=keep-first --import out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.jack --import-resource out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.res --output-jack out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack) 
&& (rm -rf out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.res) 
&& (rm out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/sdk_v21_intermediates/classes.jack.tmpjill.jack)
"
GC overhead limit exceeded
Try increasing heap size with java option '-Xmx'
Warning: This may have produced partial or corrupted output.
[ 35% 11837/33004] Building with Jack: out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/core-all_intermediates/with-local/classes.dex
FAILED: /bin/bash out/target/common/obj/JAVA_LIBRARIES/core-all_intermediates/with-local/classes.dex.rsp
Communication error with Jack server (52)
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
build/core/ninja.mk:139: recipe for target 'ninja_wrapper' failed
make: *** [ninja_wrapper] Error 1****

This is the error message where the building process stopped, it says try to increase heap size with java option "-Xmx",but I do not know how to config it when building the android source.

Answer 1

Seems like a bug in Android makefiles - 3500 megabytes is really not enough to build some Java packages inside Android. It's hardcoded value, you can find it in build/core/config.mk. For now you can simply increase it locally (however it's weird that it isn't placed in some environment variable).

I've increased it to 5500 megabytes and it works like a charm.

Answer 2

Google recommends minimum 16GB of RAM for building source code and we have experienced that with Android N it is indeed mandatory.

Unless 16 GB of RAM is given to machine, reliability of source code build is really really low. You may try multiple configurations of jack-server and parameters but none of them may prove to be a reliable.

This is running thread of similar problems faced by many :- https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=194027

I hope this helps !