PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:952

[DominikTo]

Since today I am seeing this issue on an Ubuntu machine. It's reproducible on the Ubuntu machine, but I cannot reproduce it on a Mac (10.8).

Version in use:

• PHP 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.2 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Jun 13 2012 17:19:58)
• Composer version ab1c7fb

The error:

composer --verbose install
Reading composer.json of redacted/redacted (master)
Importing branch master (dev-master)
Loading composer repositories with package information
Installing dependencies from lock file
  - Installing redacted/redacted (1.0)
    Downloading: 100%         
PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:952
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Composer\Util\ErrorHandler::handle(2, 'proc_open(): fo...', 'phar:///usr/loc...', 952, Array)
#1 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(952): proc_open('stty -a | grep ...', Array, NULL, NULL, NULL, Array)
#2 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(857): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getSttyColumns()
#3 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(780): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalWidth()
#4 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(113): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->renderException(Object(ErrorException), Object(Symfo in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php on line 952

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:952
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Composer\Util\ErrorHandler::handle(2, 'proc_open(): fo...', 'phar:///usr/loc...', 952, Array)
#1 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(952): proc_open('stty -a | grep ...', Array, NULL, NULL, NULL, Array)
#2 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(857): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getSttyColumns()
#3 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(780): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->getTerminalWidth()
#4 phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php(113): Symfony\Component\Console\Application->renderException(Object(ErrorException), Object(Symfo in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php on line 952

Maybe it's related to #1071

/cc @Seldaek

[evert]

This ticket can be closed. The system was actually out of memory.

[Seldaek]

Yeah we need to reduce memory usage but that's a known issue anyway so let's close this.

[DRAKUN]

/bin/dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.1 bs=1M count=1024
/sbin/mkswap /var/swap.1
/sbin/swapon /var/swap.1