Develop Reference

Java "Error occurred during initialization of VM" fix?

I was trying to make a Minecraft server and got the following error on startup:
Error occured during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.
I tried everything I could find: I created CLASS and CLASSPATH environmental variables that went to my Java's bin folder. I re-installed java, making sure it was 64 bit, as my computer is. Still, I get this error. Does anyone know a solution?

You are attempting to allocate more RAM than your system will allow you to allocate.
In your startup script, lower the values of your Xmx/Xms arguments.

Run the JVM with -XX:MaxHeapSize=256m (or any big number), and possibly -Xmx512m

I've actually noticed this issue when you try and take a dump of a service running java.
Try using psexec -s to execute your dump
I'm not sure why this seems to work on some servers and not others

I had this same error. Running the cmd as Administrator resolved it.

I encountered this error when I was trying to build selenium webdriver. as suggested above by Rogue that we need to reduce the allocated memory in the arguments.
I changed java heap size arguments as below
java $JAVA_OPTS -Xmx256m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=256m -jar third_party/jruby/jruby-complete.jar -X-C -S rake $*

I also faced this issue by My IntellijIDEA allocate more jvm memory space than system allocated.
My issued is resolved through just uninstall the JDK and install it again.

It happened to me also. My eclipse would not run. Uninstalled and reinstalled eclipse like 3 time and no luck. Came to this question during a google search, and Yasir's answer helped me out, because I also had IntelliJ installed into my DEV BOX recently. So deleted C:\Program Files\Java folder and reinstalled java into default install folder and it worked. I also had jdk in my system path from previous setup.

My issue was resolved after I reinstalled latest version of JDK.

Easily run out of memory when use Eclipse and Ant/Junit on my Mac

Now that OSX Maverick works with memory different (so it seems and from what I've read), when I run Java as a separate JVM (Ant/JUnit/etc.), I often get OutOfMemory exceptions as it bases the max heap on memory available which is usually close to zero (because that's apparently how Maverick works?). I know I can set the max heap space using the -Xmx argument for a run or external tool configuration in Eclipse, but that is a pain when I have several possible configurations that can be run.
I believe I would have to run in a separate JVM so my configurations don't get polluted with Eclipse classpath JARs and to a smaller extent, so the Eclipse JVM doesn't get polluted with configuration runs and all the class loading that goes on.
Is there a global setting to set the max heap available for all JVMs launched by Eclipse? For Ant, I tried setting ANT_OPTS in my environement to "-Xm1024m", but that setting doesn't seem to take when running Ant through Eclipse. If I run Ant from the command line directly, it does seem to work (or at least I didn't get an exception). When running Ant in verbose+debug mode in Eclipse, I do see "Setting project property: env.ANT_OPTS -> -Xmx1024m" so I know the variable is set.
I ran Java VisualVM to get a better idea what is going on, this is what it has:
JVM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.25-b01, mixed mode)
Java: version 1.7.0_25, vendor Oracle Corporation
Java Home: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home/jre
JVM Flags: <none>
Main class: org.eclipse.ant.internal.launching.remote.InternalAntRunner

You can configure JVM arguments for an Eclipse Ant build in the Run > External Tools > External Tools Configurations dialog in the JRE tab.
Note that the default is actually to run Ant in the same JVM as Eclipse (which makes some additional Eclipse tasks available).

Running VisualVM made me realize Eclipse was still using 1.7.0_25 and not 1.7.0_45 which is the latest I have installed. Once I updated Eclipse to use 1.7.0_45, I no longer have the issue as the VM does indeed use 1/4 of total memory. Would be nice to know for sure, but it seems like build 25 had a bug or something.

IntelliJ IDEA 12.0 JVM Startup Error

I just upgraded to IntelliJ IDEA 12.0 and get an error immediately upon attempting to launch:
The JVM could not be started. The maximum heap size (-Xmx) might be too large or
an antivirus or firewall tool could block the execution.
I checked my idea.exe.vmoptions file and the maximum heap size is only 640m (I have 8 GB physical memory and am not running any other applications).
idea.exe.vmoptions
-Xms128m
-Xmx640m
-XX:MaxPermSize=640m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m
-XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
I still have IntelliJ IDEA 11.4 on my machine and I am able to run that (using the same values for max heapsize in idea.exe.vmoptions). Since IntelliJ IDEA 11.4 runs, I don't believe it is an antivirus or firewall issue. I have also checked those settings as well.
Anyone run across this or have any idea (no pun intended)?

Please see this answer for the problem background and the solution.
Your questions seems to be the exact duplicate of:
How to increase intellij 32bit xmx more than 1GB?

Assuming you are on windows I am curious why you are running the 32bit version of intellij when you have a 64bit machine?
I was having the same error and found that there was two things going on. The first was that the link I had in the taskbar was pointing to the idea.exe instead of the idea64.exe, which meant I was only launching the 32bit version of intelliJ.
Second there is another file for vm options for the 64bit. idea64.exe.vmoptions
After switching to the 64bit exe and making sure the vm options I wanted were correct in the vmoptions file I did not have any further issues.
On another interesting note I found that on 32bit machines when the 32bit version of intelliJ was set to have 1gb of memory for -Xmx and I had chrome open I would get the error. If I closed chrome I would no longer get the error. I think this had something to do with the jvm verifying that the required amount of memory was available before launching.

Try to configure your idea to the default values
-Xms128m
-Xmx512m
-XX:MaxPermSize=250m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m
-XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
VM options are loaded from the IDE_HOME\bin\[bits][.exe].vmoptions file.
More info: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/entries/23393413-The-JVM-could-not-be-started-The-main-method-may-have-thrown-an-exception

I found that switching from a 32-bit version to a 64-bit version caused the issue, as my windows shortcuts still pointed to the old idea.exe and not the correct idea64.exe.

Problems setting Tomcat Java Heap Size to 8GB on Windows 7 (64 bit)?

I need larger Java Heap Size atleast 8GB minimum for my search application. I am working on Windows 7 (64 bit). I am not able to allocate more than 1500MB using CATALINA_OPTS environment variable. When I try allocating more the Tomcat crashes and is not able to start. I donwloaded 64 bit Java Run Time now and also subsequently 64 bit Apache Tomcat. Even now its not permitting me to start with more Heap Size. It (Tomcat 64 bit) crashes again. Any help would be appreciated.

I solved the problem. Actually I was trying to start Tomcat (startup.bat) in command prompt in Windows. It was crashing. Still dont know the reason for this (maybe related to starting 64 bit Tomcat on Dos/ When I start tomcat as a service using service.bat install it works perfectly fine.

From: Increasing the JVM maximum heap size for memory intensive applications
Try to specify -d64 on your CATALINA_OPTS.
Edit: Seems that option only has an effect on Solaris. Nevermind.

let the environment variables JAVA_HOME and PATH refer to your 64-Bit JVM. You can check it on command-line by executing java -version and %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe -version (on Windows).

Tomcat inconsistencies + uncertainty in setting paths

Background
As this is the first question I have posted, I will try to break it down as well as possible, and I apologize for any incorrect formats. I should also point out that I am brand-new to Linux, Tomcat, and Java (all within the last few weeks), so if you do have an answer please dumb it down as much as you can. Thanks!
This question is actually several questions, but I feel the issues are somehow related so I will include them all. As for my environment, I am running an EC2 Amazon Linux instance. Details returned using
cat /proc/version are:
Linux version 2.6.35.14-97.44.amzn1.x86_64
(mockbuild#build-31006.build)
(gcc version 4.4.5 20110214 (Red Hat 4.4.5-6) (GCC)
java -version gives me:
java version "1.6.0_29" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build
1.6.0_29-b11)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.4-b02, mixed mode)
Issue(s)
What would allow me to stop/restart Tomcat sometimes, but not
others? After I change configuration parameters and need to restart
Tomcat, I use /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart or service tomcat6
restart with varying degrees of success: sometimes the nice green
OK, others the red FAILED. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to
why it works sometimes and not others. When it doesn't work I check
the status with service tomcat6 status, which yields something
like tomcat6 (pid ####) is running. Also worth noting is that my
Putty SSH session slows down significantly at the same time whenever
I am unable to stop Tomcat. I literally have to wait for each keystroke to be processed!
I cannot use any of the JVM-specific -XX parameters. I get an error
every time of Could not create the Java virtual machine. Of the
threads I've read about this, most surround heap memory allocation
issues, but I don't think that's my problem because when I run java
-XX, which should give me a list of available commands just like java -X does, I simply get:
Unrecognized option: -XX Could not create the Java virtual machine.
I should note that I had at least two versions of Java on this OS- it came with Open JDK, but I needed Sun Java as that was recommended for performance in Geoserver (which is the whole point of me learning all this). I read that it is not an issue to have two versions, as long as my JAVA_HOME path points to the correct directory, but is it possible that it was still somehow looking at something from the original configuration? That's what I thought, so to rule it out I did a yum remove java, which erased the original version (along with Tomcat due to the dependency, but whatevs, I can get it back later), ran java -version to make sure I still had the version I wanted. I did, then ran java -XX, hoping that it magically fixed itself after cleaning house with the unwanted OpenJDK removal, but NOPE, same error as before.
Conclusions
I am now assuming that there was no issue with old paths. I've also tried changing my JAVA_HOME variable to the appropriate path (/usr/java/jre1.6.0_29) in every conceivable location:
in bash_profile
in bashrc
java.conf
tomcat6.conf (well, before I deleted Tomcat, that is)
probably some other files. It's all a blur really.
export JAVA_HOME in the shell
... all with zero impact, with the exception of using export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jre1.6.0_29. Every time I ran echo $JAVA_HOME I would still get the original JAVA_HOME path, which I'm pretty sure is not what I want. Even when resetting the variable was successful (via export in the shell), I still got my -XX error. I also tried setting some JAVA_OPTS parameters, specifically for memory settings, then ran an echo $JAVA_OPTS that returned nothing.
I have spent a solid two days on this and am about ready to give up. I would really like to avoid reinstalling and reconfiguring a whole bunch of stuff if possible, not to mention I don't even know if that would fix my problem, but I would really, really like to know WHY I having these issues and whether or not they're related, so if any of you have suggestions on this or anything in general that I'm doing incorrectly, please let me know. Thanks!

I can't help you with the first issue but in regard to your second issue: "I cannot use any of the JVM-specific -XX parameters.":
the environment variable CATALINA_OPTS is used by tomcat when starting the JVM. So if you want to use 512mb of heap and 128mb of perm gen space you can issue the follwing command on a bash shell to start tomcat with some custom java options.
#> CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m" $TOMCAT_HOME/bin/catalina.sh run
you can also change the default parameters by changing CATALINA_OPTS in tomcat's startup script or you can add the paramenter to your environment (e.g. $HOME/.bashrc).
hope that helps.