JavaScript heap out of memory

[timwhitez]

What happened?

FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory

What did you expect to happen?

catch the error

Client information

Details

<--- Last few GCs --->

[1209110:0x40866000]   983782 ms: Mark-Compact 4090.6 (4119.2) -> 4086.8 (4119.4) MB, pooled: 2 MB, 166.98 / 0.01 ms  (average mu = 0.453, current mu = 0.079) allocation failure; scavenge might not succeed
[1209110:0x40866000]   983954 ms: Mark-Compact 4091.7 (4120.4) -> 4087.8 (4120.7) MB, pooled: 1 MB, 166.47 / 0.02 ms  (average mu = 0.294, current mu = 0.035) allocation failure; scavenge might not succeed


<--- JS stacktrace --->

FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
----- Native stack trace -----

 1: 0xe13fde node::OOMErrorHandler(char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
 2: 0x11d5070 v8::Utils::ReportOOMFailure(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
 3: 0x11d5347 v8::internal::V8::FatalProcessOutOfMemory(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
 4: 0x1402c05  [node]
 5: 0x141c499 v8::internal::Heap::CollectGarbage(v8::internal::AllocationSpace, v8::internal::GarbageCollectionReason, v8::GCCallbackFlags) [node]
 6: 0x13f0b48 v8::internal::HeapAllocator::AllocateRawWithLightRetrySlowPath(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
 7: 0x13f1a75 v8::internal::HeapAllocator::AllocateRawWithRetryOrFailSlowPath(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
 8: 0x13ca74e v8::internal::Factory::NewFillerObject(int, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin) [node]
 9: 0x182bd6c v8::internal::Runtime_AllocateInYoungGeneration(int, unsigned long*, v8::internal::Isolate*) [node]
10: 0x7bb8c7eac476
Aborted (core dumped)

Login information

No response

Anything else we need to know?

No response

[markmcd]

Can you provide more info? Was this at launch? During a prompt?

[tom-devv]

Same issue, occured after prompting.

Logs

<--- Last few GCs --->

[1162:0x4043a000] 47315 ms: Mark-Compact 4094.7 (4101.1) -> 4094.7 (4101.1) MB, pooled: 0 MB, 9.18 / 0.00 ms (average mu = 0.572, current mu = 0.269) allocation failure; scavenge might not succeed

FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
----- Native stack trace -----

1: 0xf1f1cb node::OOMErrorHandler(char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
2: 0x13543e0 v8::Utils::ReportOOMFailure(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
3: 0x13544cf v8::internal::V8::FatalProcessOutOfMemory(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
4: 0x15eab45 [node]
5: 0x15fbccc v8::internal::Heap::CollectGarbage(v8::internal::AllocationSpace, v8::internal::GarbageCollectionReason, v8::GCCallbackFlags) [node]
6: 0x15d1933 v8::internal::HeapAllocator::AllocateRawWithRetryOrFailSlowPath(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
7: 0x15a7404 v8::internal::Factory::AllocateRaw(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
8: 0x15931d8 v8::internal::FactoryBasev8::internal::Factory::NewRawTwoByteString(int, v8::internal::AllocationType) [node]
9: 0x15a68a3 [node]
10: 0x15b442b v8::internal::Factory::NewStringFromUtf8(v8::base::Vector, v8::internal::AllocationType) [node]
11: 0x136fd2d v8::String::NewFromUtf8(v8::Isolate*, char const*, v8::NewStringType, int) [node]
12: 0x122ab29 [node]
13: 0x122ad12 node::StringDecoder::DecodeData(v8::Isolate*, char const*, unsigned long*) [node]
14: 0x122b21d [node]
15: 0x72026bdcf1be
Aborted (core dumped)

[b1zantine]

Same issue. Happens after prompting. Especially when the agent is searching for text in a repo.

Crash logs

<--- Last few GCs --->

[522576:0x252af000] 203805 ms: Mark-Compact (reduce) 4094.7 (4102.6) -> 4093.3 (4099.4) MB, pooled: 0 MB, 5.51 / 0.01 ms (+ 12.1 ms in 4 steps since start of marking, biggest step 5.0 ms, walltime since start of marking 26 ms) (average mu = 0.798, curr
FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
----- Native stack trace -----

1: 0xf1f1cb node::OOMErrorHandler(char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
2: 0x13543e0 v8::Utils::ReportOOMFailure(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
3: 0x13544cf v8::internal::V8::FatalProcessOutOfMemory(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, v8::OOMDetails const&) [node]
4: 0x15eab45 [node]
5: 0x15fbccc v8::internal::Heap::CollectGarbage(v8::internal::AllocationSpace, v8::internal::GarbageCollectionReason, v8::GCCallbackFlags) [node]
6: 0x15d1933 v8::internal::HeapAllocator::AllocateRawWithRetryOrFailSlowPath(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
7: 0x15a7404 v8::internal::Factory::AllocateRaw(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
8: 0x15931d8 v8::internal::FactoryBasev8::internal::Factory::NewRawTwoByteString(int, v8::internal::AllocationType) [node]
9: 0x15a68a3 [node]
10: 0x15b442b v8::internal::Factory::NewStringFromUtf8(v8::base::Vector, v8::internal::AllocationType) [node]
11: 0x136fd2d v8::String::NewFromUtf8(v8::Isolate*, char const*, v8::NewStringType, int) [node]
12: 0x122ab29 [node]
13: 0x122ad12 node::StringDecoder::DecodeData(v8::Isolate*, char const*, unsigned long*) [node]
14: 0x122b21d [node]
15: 0x76e6cb58f1be
[1] 522576 IOT instruction (core dumped) gemini

[pmarangone]

Same issue 👍

[mpanwar12]

Same issue. Using version 0.1.7 on a large repo.

[slavakurilyak]

Hey team! I ran into this memory issue when I pasted a huge chunk of text (hundreds of lines) into Gemini CLI and hit enter - instant crash with the dreaded "JavaScript heap out of memory" error.

What happened

My process died when it hit ~2GB of memory. Turns out V8 defaults to limiting the max heap size to 700 MB or 1,400MB on 32 and 64-bit platforms, which explains why we're hitting this wall.

Looking at #1740, #2490, and #2585, I'm definitely not alone - this happens when:

• Pasting large text inputs (like I did)
• Searching through big repos
• Running intensive file operations

Quick fixes that would help

1. Bump the default memory limit - maybe 4GB? Most modern machines can handle it
2. Stream/chunk large inputs - don't load everything at once
3. Warn users - a simple "hey, that's a lot of text!" before processing

Workaround for now

If anyone else hits this, you can do:

NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192" gemini

Would love to see this fixed - it's clearly affecting a lot of users trying to work with real-world data!

[sethtroisi]

@jacob314

[domenic]

I can reproduce this consistently using the Chromium repository and the following prompt:

We're going to work on a new CL. The goal is to remove the ImportMapIntegrity feature from the codebase, since it has been stable for some time. This includes removing its definition and un-guarding any code that is guarded behind it. To find usages, please search the codebase. Be careful to distinguish between the ImportMapIntegrity feature, and the ImportMapIntegrity histogram/use counter: we want to leave the latter untouched. Start by reporting back with a plan for what files you will edit and how.

Sometimes it uses grep -r, but then it gets confused by finding lots of matches in binary or generated files in the out/ directory. If it uses SearchText, then it will consistently get this error.

Edit: NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192" does not help, still getting the error.