# Errno::ENOMEM: Cannot allocate memory
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** server-resources
**Created:** [May 5, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736 "2016-05-05T14:32:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SkritterJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SkritterJosh)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/1 "2016-05-05T14:32:01Z")
I just ran an update and got the following error. Then when I refreshed the page to run it again it showed that the update had already been applied. Any thoughts?
```
Errno::ENOMEM: Cannot allocate memory - gzip -f -c -7 /var/www/discourse/public/assets/docker-manager-app-5abf141467f1e67d5d860236f75651be.js > /var/www/discourse/public/assets/docker-manager-app-5abf141467f1e67d5d860236f75651be.js.gz
/var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.0.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.6/lib/active_support/core_ext/kernel/agnostics.rb:7:in ``'
/var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.0.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.6/lib/active_support/core_ext/kernel/agnostics.rb:7:in ``'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:108:in `gzip'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:161:in `block (4 levels) in '
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:125:in `call'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:125:in `block in concurrent?'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:152:in `call'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:152:in `block (3 levels) in '
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:141:in `each'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:141:in `block (2 levels) in '
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:125:in `concurrent?'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:137:in `block in '
```
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/2 "2016-05-05T14:36:06Z")
Do you have enough ram and swap?
```bash
free -m
```
---
### Author:  [@dylanh724](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dylanh724)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/3 "2016-05-05T14:45:00Z")
@SkritterJosh ME TOO!!
2gb droplet - way more than enough. I just saw the update and tried it.
100% same err. Def have enough mem.
---
### Author:  [@SkritterJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SkritterJosh)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/4 "2016-05-05T14:54:30Z")
@Falco Yes, I do have enough ram and swap.
@dylanh724 I just updated docker and discourse using the terminal and it seemed to work, but using the discourse admin interface it didn’t.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/5 "2016-05-05T20:45:30Z")
Show us the output of `free -m`
---
### Author:  [@avorio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/avorio)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/6 "2016-05-05T22:32:43Z")
I got exactly the same error. Here’s the output:
```
Compressing: docker-manager-app-c32d676193f61b3085ec0e77f8d9fca361291a549828d82d1e33c356786f8ca0.js
gzip /var/www/discourse/public/assets/docker-manager-app-c32d676193f61b3085ec0e77f8d9fca361291a549828d82d1e33c356786f8ca0.js
Bundling assets
Compressing Javascript and Generating Source Maps
rake aborted!
Errno::ENOMEM: Cannot allocate memory - gzip -f -c -7 /var/www/discourse/public/assets/docker-manager-app-c32d676193f61b3085ec0e77f8d9fca361291a549828d82d1e33c356786f8ca0.js > /var/www/discourse/public/assets/docker-manager-app-c32d676193f61b3085ec0e77f8d9fca361291a549828d82d1e33c356786f8ca0.js.gz
/var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.0.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.6/lib/active_support/core_ext/kernel/agnostics.rb:7:in ``'
/var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.0.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.6/lib/active_support/core_ext/kernel/agnostics.rb:7:in ``'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:108:in `gzip'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:149:in `block (2 levels) in '
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:130:in `each'
/var/www/discourse/lib/tasks/assets.rake:130:in `block in '
Tasks: TOP => assets:precompile
(See full trace by running task with --trace)
```
And here’s `free -m`:
```
root@xyz:~# free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2000 1586 414 36 63 276
-/+ buffers/cache: 1246 754
Swap: 0 0 0
root@xyz:~#
```
However, now `admin/upgrade` says that `docker_manager` is up to date:
`docker_manager (9b59950)`
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/7 "2016-05-05T22:45:16Z")
Set up a swap!
> [@Create a swapfile for your Linux server](https://meta.discourse.org/t/create-a-swapfile-for-your-linux-server/13880):
>
> bulb For servers with \<= 4GB of RAM, running ./discourse-setup will prompt for and automatically create a 2GB swapfile. Most cloud virtual machine providers do not set up swapfiles as part of their server provisioning. In particular, upgrading Discourse produces a lot of memory pressure. With a swap file, rather than randomly terminating processes with an out of memory error, things will slow down instead. Having a swap file is a cheap insurance policy that protects you from many other lo…
---
### Author:  [@avorio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/avorio)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/8 "2016-05-05T22:50:34Z")
Thanks. I just did that.
Is it safe to assume that the upgrade went well, then? Or how do I double-check?
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/9 "2016-05-05T22:53:37Z")
There is the version on /admin, and the version hash on the page source (CTRL+U) that you can check.
---
### Author:  [@SkritterJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SkritterJosh)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/10 "2016-05-06T02:53:57Z")
@avorio I’m not sure if it’s safe to assume that. I also experienced the same thing where the upgrade failed, but then later it said everything was up to date. I went ahead and manually updated both docker and discourse. It did appear they still had updates perform and the dashboard was producing a false positive on the update.
---
### Author:  [@avorio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/avorio)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/11 "2016-05-06T21:46:07Z")
Hi @SkritterJosh! Thanks for that.
How do I manually update both docker and discourse, please?
---
### Author:  [@SkritterJosh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SkritterJosh)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/12 "2016-05-06T22:27:53Z")
On my particular setup using Ubuntu I ran the following commands to get things updated.
Docker:
> apt-get update
> apt-get upgrade lxc-docker
Discourse
> cd /var/discourse
> git pull
> ./launcher rebuild app
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/13 "2016-05-06T23:19:28Z")
> [@SkritterJosh](#):
>
> apt-get upgrade lxc-docker
see: [Install Docker Engine on Ubuntu | Docker Docs](https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/linux/ubuntulinux/)
you want docker-engine, lxc-docker should be removed.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/14 "2016-05-07T00:03:11Z")
I believe lxc-docker can be upgraded to 1.9.1 but no higher.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/15 "2019-01-16T14:52:41Z")
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/16 "2019-01-16T19:36:52Z")
General solution to this error is adding swap, in some cases you may need a bigger swap
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/errno-cannot-allocate-memory/43736/17 "2019-02-15T19:36:52Z")
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