JDK-5037007 : Unexpected Full GC occurs at 54% of old generation capacity
  • Type: Bug
  • Component: hotspot
  • Sub-Component: gc
  • Affected Version: 1.4.2_04
  • Priority: P2
  • Status: Resolved
  • Resolution: Fixed
  • OS: solaris_8
  • CPU: sparc
  • Submitted: 2004-04-23
  • Updated: 2004-10-13
  • Resolved: 2004-09-20
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Other
1.4.2_07 b01Fixed
Description
The testcase below can demonstrate that Full GC kicks in when old generation is only 54% of its capacity. The heap size should be set to 3GB

CoreGenerator.java
import java.util.*;

public class CoreGenerator implements Runnable
{
   static Random generator  = new Random();
   private String genString( int length )
   {
      final byte space = 32;
      final int range = 128 - 32;
         char newMessage[] = new char[ length ];
         for ( int j = 0; j < length; j++ )
         {
            newMessage[ j ] = (char)( space + (byte) generator.nextInt( range ) );
         }
         return new String( newMessage );
   }
   public void run()
   {
      HashMap hm = new HashMap( 1024 );
      final int maxLength = 4 * 1024 * 1024;
      for ( int i = 1; i < 2 * 1024 * 1024; i++ )
      {
         hm.put( new Integer( i ), genString( generator.nextInt( maxLength ) )  );
         if (0 == ( i % 20 ) )
         {
            hm.put( new Integer( generator.nextInt( i ) ), genString( generator.nextInt( maxLength ) )  );
         }
      }
   }
   public static void main( String args[] )
   {
      for ( int i = 0; i < 20; i++ )
      {
         new Thread( new CoreGenerator() ).start();
      }
   }
}

Run this test program with foillowing options:

java -DORB.OrbName=CoreTest -Xms3g -Xmx3g -XX:NewSize=300m -XX:MaxNewSize=300m -XX:SurvivorRatio=4 -XX:+PrintCompilation -XX:+UseParallelGC -XX:ParallelGCThreads=24 -XX:MaxPermSize=256MB -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+PrintTenuringDistribution -XX:+PrintHeapAtGC -XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps -Xnoclassgc -verbose:gc CoreGenerator 

Note that ParalleGC is used for young gen.

Comments
CONVERTED DATA BugTraq+ Release Management Values COMMIT TO FIX: 1.4.2_07 FIXED IN: 1.4.2_07 INTEGRATED IN: 1.4.2_07
02-10-2004

EVALUATION ###@###.### 2004-04-23 Peter & Ramki also looked at this a bit. On the hashmap resizing, when a hashmap (or hashtable) fills up, it expands by doubling in size. From Peter.Kessler: > > ... It looks like it's just going to run out of > memory, ... Ah, it does run out of memory. And since it doesn't have catch blocks, the OutOfMemoryError kills off one of the 20 threads that they start, which frees up a pile and a half of space, which allows the other threads to continue. From Y.S.Ramakrishna: I noticed their use of a HashMap in the test and wonder if this may be related to HashMap resizing that causes a _huge_ allocation request at some point sufficiently far into the run... Might be useful to have the HashMap print out its size periodically, so one can track its resizing (or have verbose gc print out the allocation request that triggered a collection). ###@###.### 2004-04-26 Email from Rajesh; CBOE is not using CMS: Because of some confusion earlier, I said customer was using Concurrent collector. I just confirmed with them and they are NOT. They are just using UseParallelGC only. I has asked CBOE to send us the GC logs and will forward you as soon as I get them ###@###.### 2004-05-13 This particular problem occurs because they are running with AdaptiveSizePolicy disabled and a large heap with -Xms == -Xmx. AdaptiveSizePolicy::_promo_size is set in the AdaptiveSizePolicy constructor to the initial size of the old gen. They are running with -Xms==-Xmx==3g and -XX:-UseAdaptiveSizePolicy, so _promo_size is initialized to a large value and then never updated. AdaptiveSizePolicy::should_full_GC() is used even when UseAdaptiveSizePolicy is false, and it contains this calculation which overflows: size_t upper_bound = _live_at_last_full_gc + _promo_size; The result is a bogus small value of upper_bound, which causes should_full_GC() to return true, so a full GC is done instead of just a scavenge.
02-10-2004

PUBLIC COMMENTS Unexpected Full GC occurs at 54% of old generation capacity
02-10-2004