node not allowing custom heap limit (--max-old-space-size)

Question

I'm on Ubuntu 15.10 and am running node v6.2.1.

My machine has 15GB of RAM:

>> sudo lshw -class memory
  *-memory
       description: System memory
       physical id: 4
       size: 15GiB

But, when I try to start node with an increased heap limit:

node --max-old-space-size=2048

...it immediately runs out of memory:

<--- Last few GCs --->

      25 ms: Mark-sweep 1.9 (19.5) -> 1.9 (19.5) MB, 0.7 / 0 ms [allocation failure] [GC in old space requested].
      26 ms: Mark-sweep 1.9 (19.5) -> 1.9 (19.5) MB, 0.8 / 0 ms [allocation failure] [GC in old space requested].
      27 ms: Mark-sweep 1.9 (19.5) -> 1.9 (19.5) MB, 0.9 / 0 ms [allocation failure] [GC in old space requested].
      28 ms: Mark-sweep 1.9 (19.5) -> 1.9 (19.5) MB, 0.7 / 0 ms [last resort gc].
      29 ms: Mark-sweep 1.9 (19.5) -> 1.9 (19.5) MB, 0.8 / 0 ms [last resort gc].


<--- JS stacktrace --->

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

Security context: 0x3d67857d <JS Object>
    2: replace [native string.js:134] [pc=0x4bb3f0c7] (this=0xb523c015 <Very long string[2051]>,N=0xb523d05d <JS RegExp>,O=0xb520b269 <String[2]: \">)
    3: setupConfig [internal/process.js:112] [pc=0x4bb3d146] (this=0xb523727d <an Object with map 0x2ea0bc25>,_source=0x454086c1 <an Object with map 0x2ea0deb1>)
    4: startup(aka startup) [node.js:51] [pc=0x4bb3713e] (this=0x3d6080c9 <undefined>)
 ...

FATAL ERROR: CALL_AND_RETRY_LAST Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
Aborted (core dumped)

Any advice on how I can start a node process with a higher heap limit?

Answer 1

As far as I know, there was an issue with (old-space-)memory on 6.2.1. Update to 6.4 and see what happens. I had a similar issue while using gulp watchers. On first sight, 4GB were not enough, so I tried pushing up to 11.5 (which seemed to be the max limit). After all, the problem was with gulp.run() as it's deprecated now.

What I wanted to say is that it's not always about memory where the bug resides :)

That doesn't quite answer your question, but perhaps it's of help.