topic Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call in Operating System - OpenVMS

Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Craigers — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:24:19 GMT

I am running VAX/VM V6.2. I have an application that fails after running for weeks. The error is "%SYSTEM-F-EXQUOTA, process quota exceeded". This occurs when my program execuates a sys$creprc. When I look at the account that runs the application has a "Prclm" of 100. When I look at the process it typically has about 11 processes in the job. Sub processes terminate occasionally and others are started over time; but it seems to maintain ~11 concurrent. "Help" suggests this is a limit of concurrent subprocesses. Is this true, or is it in fact cummulative?

Any other ideas on what is causing the error or a remedy?

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Ian Miller. — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:41:04 GMT

prclm is the limit on the number of subprocesses. the EXQUOTA errors indicates a quota was exceeded but does not say which one. It one of the process quotas especially one of the pooled (shared between all jobs in tree) quotas.

Watch quota usage of the process that is creating processes to see which quota. You could use SHOW_QUOTA.COM available from
http://dcl.openvms.org/stories.php?story=03/06/03/0022504
and other places or use AMDS or Availability Manager.

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Volker Halle — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:39:49 GMT

From the documentation of the $CREPRC system service:

SS$_EXQUOTA may be returned if:

At least one of the following conditions is true:

- The process has exceeded its quota for the creation of subprocesses.

- A quota value specified for the creation of a subprocess exceeds the creating process's corresponding quota.

- The quota is deductible and the remaining quota for the creating process would be less than the minimum.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/4527/4527pro_026.html

The OpenVMS documentation is generally quite good at describing possible reasons for returning an error status.

As a first guess, I would check PGFLQUOTA...

Volker.

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

comarow — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:30:13 GMT

Could your limit of processes be reached?

When if fails, does SDA show a quota exhausted?

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:27:45 GMT

Still find it disappointing (of HP) that after all these years the quota name isn't specified.

Wim

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

John Gillings — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:21:42 GMT

>after all these years the quota name isn't specified.

Wim,

There are process quota specific error messages for all quotas, and have been for several years. BUT engineering hasn't been back over all the ancient code paths to "fix" them. $CREPRC is obviously very, very old. Would you rather engineering spend resources polishing ancient history (and potentially breaking very fundamental things), fixing things that people report as broken, or building new things?

Note the customer is running a decade old version of OpenVMS, so it's feasible (but I think unlikely) that this code path HAS been updated...

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:14:05 GMT

John,

I choose that they finish the old stuff first. How many people already lost time because of those bad messages. I did. In the eighties !

Wim

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Craigers — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:14:38 GMT

Thanks for your replies, you may have set me on the right track. I am using SHOW_QUOTA.COM now to monitor my process as suggested. My PGFLQUOTA is creeping up slowly (I'm at 60%; of 100K). Only time will tell, as this process takes a month or so to die.

If we determine PGFLQUOTA increases over time, does it imply a memory leak?

Thanks!

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:19:30 GMT

No. Each time your program consumes memory via e.g. a mallloc of memory and puts data in it the pgflq will increase.

Wim

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Ian Miller. — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:27:24 GMT

pagefile usage should increase then stop increasing. If it does not then either there is a memory leak or your current pgflquo is too small.

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Volker Halle — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:44:56 GMT

Wim,

if a program only uses malloc to allocate data and never returns it via free, once it's done processing that data, I would call this a 'memory leak'.

You can use ACCOUNTING to look at previous instances of the program aborting. Check the Peak page file: value in those previous accounting records. If the values are all near or equal to PGFLQUOTA, you can be sure, that there is a memory leak. Just double the value of PGFLQUOTA and your process may run twice as long. Make sure you have enough free pagefile space.

Volker.

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:48:05 GMT

Volker,

In that case we have lots of memory leaks over here.

E.g. Sybase server, lots of programs that malloc as the cache needs to be extented (the ING.be bank position is kept in memory), etc.

So, it depends on the program.

Wim

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Craigers — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 09:56:45 GMT

I agree with both of you. I should have added the caveat: "if my application is not designed to accumulate anything". In general, a steady memory usage increase in my application would be unexpected. We're holding steady at 60%... /yawn

Thanks,
Craig

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Volker Halle — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:18:38 GMT

Craig,

next time you start this process, consider to use SET PROC/DUMP or RUN/DUMP. This should create a process dump (imagename.DMP) on a fatal error. You could then ANAL/PROC that dump - maybe to find out, what kind of data is being stored in process memory (typically at high end of P0 space for a memory leak, as the address space will expand continously).

Volker.

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 07:05:50 GMT

Time to change your user name ?

Wim

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Craigers — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:58:16 GMT

Ok, maybe this user name is better... At least it seems more reusable! haha, thanks!

Craig

Re: Process Quota Exceeded during sys$creprc call

Jan van den Ende — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 15:40:09 GMT

Craig,

since you are new to this community, I would like to point out

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe