[IDV #SRS-784269]: PermGen error and memory issues

Hi Don!

I was (finally) looking into the PermGen stuff and noticed that you checked in 
some code back in December to handle this in the System Preference Tab, as well 
as code to handle saving the preference - awesome! I did some testing with 
jvisualvm to see how the PermGen space changed while abusing the IDV, and with 
6 GB I was able to get 108 MB (I loaded about 20 or so bundles, has 12 views as 
well as data panels, etc.), so I would say 512 MB is a good upper limit. If you 
want, I can open a ticket on Redmine for discussion on the topic so that we can 
get your work in the tree...this will really help windows users, as they get a 
bit finicky when they have to edit the runIDV.bat script using admin privileges.

Thanks!

Sean

> Hi Sean-
> 
> Thanks for looking into this.  It's becoming more and more of an
> annoyance (especially on MacOS) and I'm surprised that no one has
> written in to complain (besides me).
> 
> I've been using 256 and 512 (depending on how much memory I allocate to
> the IDV which varies between 2 and 8 GB).
> 
> I think we need to allow the user to set it through the system tab of
> the user preferences in case the default doesn't work.  I think starting
> small (i.e. 128) would be fine and the UI could just be an editable
> combo box of 128, 256, 512 (editable so the user can type in their own
> amount if they want).  The selected value would be used in the
> runIDV/runIDV.bat scripts.
> 
> Let me know if you have any questions about how to implement this.
> 
> Don
> 
> On 10/7/11 2:02 PM, Unidata IDV Support wrote:
> > Don,
> >
> > What would be the downside of adding -XX:MaxPermSize=128m to runIDV? 128 MB 
> > seems to keep things under control on my system (I think the default is 
> > 64MB).
> >
> > Sean
> >
> >
> >> Hi-
> >>
> >> During the recent AAP workshop, we were running the IDV under CentOS in
> >> a virtual machine set up under Oracle's Virtual Box.  The native system
> >> had 2 GB of memory and the VM's were set up to allocate 1.5 GB.
> >>
> >> The first problem was that the IDV only allocated 512 MB of the 1.5
> >> available.  This caused problems loading satellite images and any other
> >> raster data.
> >>
> >> The second issue was getting PermGen errors.  This seems to be cropping
> >> up more and more.  At the very least, there should be an FAQ item on
> >> this, but it might be useful to have a permgen setting in the System tab
> >> of the Preferences so the users don't have to edit runIDV to account for
> >> this.
> >>
> >> Don
> >> --
> >> Don Murray
> >> NOAA/ESRL/PSD and CIRES
> >> 303-497-3596
> >> http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/don.murray/
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Ticket Details
> > ===================
> > Ticket ID: SRS-784269
> > Department: Support IDV
> > Priority: Critical
> > Status: Open
> >
> 
> --
> Don Murray
> NOAA/ESRL/PSD and CIRES
> 303-497-3596
> http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/don.murray/
> 
> 


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: SRS-784269
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Critical
Status: Open