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My Eclipse helios has been throwing weird PermGen space and Java Heap errors since the time I've got this new HDD, put new OS into it and have re-installed Java.

Does anyone have a guess why this is happening?

I followed this, this and this as well but adding anything into eclipse.ini just won't work. The only way I could get it to work was to start eclipse from command line with specific parameters.

I am running on windows 7 as of now.

here's my eclipse.ini I've added some things into it after going through the above links:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.0.v20100507.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.1.R36x_v20100810
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.java.product
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
512M
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
512m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-vm
C:/Program Files/Java/jre6/bin/java
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xms512m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:+UseParallelGC
-XX:PermSize=512M
-XX:MaxPermSize=512M

EDIT

Here are the screenshots of the errors that I am receiving, even after correcting the ini file:

First error

second error

Third Error

Fourth Error

And here it finally asks if I would like to exit the workbench. If I choose not to, then nothing works.

Fifth Error

Sorry for flooding this question with images, but I felt they'll help.

Aman Alam
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3 Answers3

1

You have two -vmargs. You should only have one, combining the two fields. Ie:

-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xms512m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:+UseParallelGC
-XX:PermSize=512M
-XX:MaxPermSize=512M

The extra -vmargs will be passed from the launcher to the JRE and so it's fairly platform dependent as to what happens. On my Apple/Sun JRE with Eclipse 3.7, it's ignored. On my Sun JRE with Eclipse 3.7 on Windows, it errors immediately. It's possible that there's a setup that ignores everything after the invalid parameter.

Edward Thomson
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  • Thanks, I'll just try this out on my Windows and will post the results back. Currently I am on a mac, where things just work :) – Aman Alam Oct 07 '11 at 06:38
  • I applied your changes, but still no effect. I posted the screenshots of the errors in the question. I hope they'll help – Aman Alam Oct 14 '11 at 04:18
1

The screenshots are not very useful. They all just complain about permgen and head space in different ways. Here's my eclipse.ini (Windows 7 64-bit, 32-bit Java, JDK 1.7.0):

 -startup
 plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.2.0.v20110502.jar
 --launcher.library
 plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.100.v20110502
 -showsplash
 org.eclipse.platform
 --launcher.XXMaxPermSize
 256m
 --launcher.defaultAction
 openFile
 -vmargs
 -Xms40m
 -Xmx384m

Have you checked the actual Eclipse command line? Open the task manager and make sure that you have "Command Line" selected in "Select columns". My command line looks something like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0\bin\javaw.exe" ... -Xms40m -Xmx384m ... -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m ...

If the options are not present, then you (unsurprisingly) have a problem with the Eclipse launcher. If the options are in place and you still get the permgen/heap space problems, then you probably have a memory leak of some sort. Your best shot is to use a tool like JVisualVM to figure out where the problem lies.

Not all problems with heap and permgen space are caused by too small limits being passed to the JVM.

JesperE
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  • Thanks for such a detailed explanation. I'll try this out as soon as I am home. moreover, should I provide with some sort of error log so that the errors are understandable? – Aman Alam Oct 14 '11 at 09:59
  • Well, if you are getting permgen and/or heap space errors, there is not very much more information about the errors themselves which is useful. – JesperE Oct 14 '11 at 12:04
0

No changes in ini file had helped me. JesperE's variant won't worked. But you could set variables in VM arguments as here

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Gangnus
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