Ubuntu: Why am I frequently getting this "Cannot allocate memory" error? Question: I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 with Gnome-Classic. I am getting this error frequently
and with almost all programs, big and small. When I try to open them, they
don't start, and instead I get an error message that says Could not launch
'Program' - Failed to fork child process (Cannot allocate memory). This wasn't
a problem until within the last few weeks.
[cannot allocate memory]
I can not discern any commonality among the programs that cause this error. It
seems to be more a matter of time. After my computer has been running for a
while, anywhere from a day to a few days, then I can't seem to start any new
programs.
The only way I know to prevent this error is to reboot the computer.
Why am I getting this error and what do I do to stop it happening?
----
I ran the memtest available from the GRUB menu, and it reports no errors, so I
don't think this is a hardware failure.
I also ran sudo apt-get check, and no errors were found.
Here is some requested command line output:
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3945 3753 191 0 181 475
-/+ buffers/cache: 3096 848
Swap: 3813 60 3753
$ swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda6 partition 3905532 61648 -1
$ ulimit -a
core file size (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority (-e) 0
file size (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals (-i) 31421
max locked memory (kbytes, -l) 64
max memory size (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files (-n) 1024
pipe size (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority (-r) 0
stack size (kbytes, -s) 8192
cpu time (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes (-u) 31421
virtual memory (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks (-x) unlimited
This is the output of ps --sort -rss -eo rss,pid,command | head after the error
starts showing up:
$ ps --sort -rss -eo rss,pid,command | head
RSS PID COMMAND
1963400 2953 gnome-panel
155496 4029 banshee /usr/lib/banshee/Banshee.exe --redirect-log --play-enqueued
... (Please watch the video for the full question)
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