git error : out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocated X bytes)

Question

I recently got the following error log when trying to clone a git repository :

remote: Counting objects: 4607, done.
error: git upload-pack: git-pack-objects died with error.B/s      
fatal: git upload-pack: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote side.
remote: fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 119483755 bytes)
remote: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote side.
fatal: early EOF
fatal: index-pack failed

After investigating, it looks like the error is coming from the repo server. I connected via ssh and tried all the following (basically all solutions proposed by the first 2 pages of google results) :

• Modified config file by adding the following lines:

  [core]
      packedGitLimit = 512m
      packedGitWindowSize = 512m
  [pack]
      windowMemory = 512m
      packSizeLimit = 512m
      deltaCacheSize = 512m
      threads = 1
      window = 0
  

• Tried the following commands which yielded the following error logs:

  1. git repack -a -f -d

     Counting objects: 4607, done.
     fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 119483755 bytes)
     

  2. git fsck

     fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 119483755 bytes)
     

  3. git gc

     fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 119483755 bytes)
     error: failed to run repack
     

• So basically, it tells me that it is a memory error but I have enough memory :

  1. free -m

                  total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
     Mem:         12043      10825       1217          0        192       8406
     -/+ buffers/cache:       2226       9816
     Swap:          258         30        228
     

  2. ulimit -a

     core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
     data seg size           (kbytes, -d) 131072
     scheduling priority             (-e) 0
     file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
     pending signals                 (-i) 48169
     max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 64
     max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
     open files                      (-n) 1024
     pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
     POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
     real-time priority              (-r) 0
     stack size              (kbytes, -s) unlimited
     cpu time               (seconds, -t) 1800
     max user processes              (-u) 90
     virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) 131072
     file locks                      (-x) unlimited
     

I would appreciate some help, thanks.

Solution

This is same as GIT: fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed (tried to allocate 889192448 bytes).

Making below change in .gitconfig solved my problem

[http]
    postbuffer = 9999999999

This may work for you as well. Also check your .gitconfig file and which is being used. Also try to free up your RAM, it might also causing the issue.