JS heap out of memory when using gulp serve

[doxxx]

When using gulp serve --debug, after some number of rebuilds due to file changes, the gulp process will crash with an out of memory error. I haven't counted how many rebuilds it takes but it's probably at least 10 or so. The callstack varies a lot.

[10:29:04] Starting 'build'...
[10:29:04] Starting 'webpack'...

<--- Last few GCs --->

[130836:0000014A8A32CAA0]  4931482 ms: Mark-sweep 1384.4 (1456.8) -> 1384.4 (1457.3) MB, 1609.0 / 0.0 ms  allocation failure GC in old space requested
[130836:0000014A8A32CAA0]  4933019 ms: Mark-sweep 1384.4 (1457.3) -> 1384.3 (1424.8) MB, 1536.5 / 0.0 ms  last resort GC in old space requested
[130836:0000014A8A32CAA0]  4934138 ms: Mark-sweep 1384.3 (1424.8) -> 1384.3 (1424.8) MB, 1119.6 / 0.0 ms  last resort GC in old space requested


<--- JS stacktrace --->

==== JS stack trace =========================================

Security context: 0000037620EA5879 <JSObject>
    1: stringSlice(aka stringSlice) [buffer.js:560] [bytecode=0000018DF7D6C789 offset=94](this=0000016BD6B822D1 <undefined>,buf=0000025C47B176F9 <Uint8Array map = 0000001B8C0C3A71>,encoding=0000037620EB5221 <String[4]: utf8>,start=0,end=413676)
    2: toString [buffer.js:633] [bytecode=0000018DF7D6C3D9 offset=145](this=0000025C47B176F9 <Uint8Array map = 0000001B8C0C3A71>,encoding=0000037620EB5...

FATAL ERROR: CALL_AND_RETRY_LAST Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
 1: node_module_register
 2: v8::internal::FatalProcessOutOfMemory
 3: v8::internal::FatalProcessOutOfMemory
 4: v8::internal::Factory::NewRawTwoByteString
 5: v8::internal::Factory::NewStringFromUtf8
 6: v8::String::NewFromUtf8
 7: v8::internal::compiler::Type::Negative31
 8: std::vector<v8::CpuProfileDeoptFrame,std::allocator<v8::CpuProfileDeoptFrame> >::vector<v8::CpuProfileDeoptFrame,std::allocator<v8::CpuProfileDeoptFrame> >
 9: v8::internal::wasm::SignatureMap::Find
10: v8::internal::Builtins::CallableFor
11: v8::internal::Builtins::CallableFor
12: v8::internal::Builtins::CallableFor
13: 000000897FC843C1

[wictorwilen]

I noticed this as well occasionally, but haven't found a good solution to it. I'll try get a closer look at it or if someone out there has some extra time over, feel free to chime in

[doxxx]

I had a quick look at it using the Chrome dev tools to connect to the gulp node process and it looks like it might be a leak in ts-loader. I saw lots of duplicate strings containing what looked like generated Javascript, and the owner stack led back to ts-loader. If I have some more time later I can try digging deeper to determine where specifically this might be happening.

[StfBauer]

It has nothing to do with a leak in the ts-loader. The issue comes from NodeJS 8 where they introduced really low memory cap 1.4GB per NodeJS process. The only option to get around this limitation is to start gulp server using the following command.

gulp serve --max-old-space-size=8192

This will set the appropriate Node flag to use a max of 8Gb or whatever value you pass in.

Pre-NodeJS 8 a process could use as many memory as they want or request.

[wictorwilen]

Closing this as resolved both since the build pipeline is rebuilt and the solution provided by @StfBauer above

[latonita]

I have same behavior on Node 10.15. Adding max space 8192 postpones the problem for some time.