PHPStorm/Webstorm increase memory to more than 512MB

Question

I'm using PHPStorm under Win7 64bit with 64bit Java (latest version I guess) and working currently on an insanely big and chaotic project. There are many classes containing 10k LOC and more. Therefore my PHPStorm runs out of memory once in a while.

I get this nice Out-of-Memory dialog suggesting increasing my memory settings. I currently have set in my PhpStorm.exe.vmoptions:

-server
-Xms128m
-Xmx512m
-XX:MaxPermSize=250m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=64m
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
-XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=50

The problem is: When I increase my memory to be used in this file I get the following error when starting the program:

Failed to create JVM: Error code -4

I Googled around but nobody seems to want the memory to be more than 512MB.

Does anybody know what I can do to use PHPStorm without any hassle again?

Sure, I can reset the cache but this is not a permanent solution, right?

I read somewhere that adding this line to my vmoptions is a good idea, but I don't see any difference:

-server
....
-XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=15

Adrian

Are you sure that you are using 64-bit Java? What "Help | About" says about Java version used? "I googled around but nobody seems to want the memory to be more than 512MB" -- that's correct GC will be quite annoying. – Congeal

wtf...you are right, it says java x86. Why is PHPStorm not taking the main java installed on the system? – Adrian

Because 1) PhpStorm comes with bundled x86 Java and it is the first one that it tries; only then it looks for other Java installations -- check PhpStorm.bat for details (what environment variables and in which order. 2) You should use PhpStorm64.exe and not PhpStorm.exe (same for .vmoptions file -- it should be PhpStorm64.exe.vmoptions – Congeal

NOTE: I'm talking about PhpStorm v8 (currently in EAP stage) and not v7 -- which does not have those 64-bit specific files. – Congeal

ah! ok... well :) is v8 stable enough for working with it? – Adrian

Why don't you give it a try? It works OK for me (rather small projects).. but I have no clue how it will behave on your computer/projects (especially considering your requirements) -- it's an EAP build after all -- not all code is optimised for speed and memory consumption (I'm sure you know how software development works: working feature first -- optimisations later). – Congeal

Answer 1

Make sure that PhpStorm use 64-bit Java and not bundled one (which is 32-bit). You an check that in Help | About.

Generally speaking: with 64-bit Java you do not have to change that value as it works a bit differently compared to 32-bit one.

1) PhpStorm comes with bundled x86 Java and it is the first one that it tries; only then it looks for other Java installations -- check PhpStorm.bat for details (what environment variables and in which order). By defining one of those environment variables (which will point to your 64-bit Java installation) you can tell PhpStorm to use instead of bundled one.

2) PhpStorm v8 (currently in EAP stage) comes with 64-bit specific files: you should use PhpStorm64.exe and not PhpStorm.exe (same for .vmoptions file -- it should be PhpStorm64.exe.vmoptions).

I'm not sure how PhpStorm v7 works with 64-bit Java -- have never tried it this way myself.

---

Selecting the JDK version the IDE will run under

https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/entries/23455956-Selecting-the-JDK-version-the-IDE-will-run-under

Congeal

I seems that it doesn't like the 64bit at all. I added the WEBIDE_JDK enviroment var and now nothing is happening when I want to start the program... – Adrian

intellij-support.jetbrains.com/entries/… -- maybe you have provided wrong path? – Congeal

I'm pretty sure I have the right path... But the v8 seems to work and I can manipulate the memory settings! Do you know if this option is good to use: XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=15? – Adrian

Sorry -- not a Java/JVM person, at all. – Congeal

In order to solve this one it was a combination of this answer and the bottom answer. – Arid

Thank for information, I just do this for WebStorm and it's working better now. – Synergetic

I had an 81MB xdebug profiler output I tried to open in PhpStorm 9.0.2. After over 10 minutes of trying, it gave me "out of memory" error. I realized I was running 32 bit PHPS. I increased Xmx to 2048 from 512, but then PHPS32 wouldn't start an all (why?). I tried PHPS64, but I was missing the JDK, so it wouldn't start either. After installing 64 bit JDK from here (oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/…), PHPS64 started, but still ran out of memory after 10 minutes with default Xms of 750. But after I increased Xms to 2048, the profile opened in 2s! – Oregano

Answer 2

Changing memory settings for PHPStorm now has a menu option:

Kulturkampf

Good hint but the problem was that we couldn't increase the memory because of the 32bit limitations. – Adrian

I know, but though that maybe someone will need only to change memory and because SO is already like devs wiki. – Af

thanks, i got a $3k macbook pro with 16gb ram still slows down after 2-3 hours of work, increased to 2.5gb let's see how this works out. – Schifra

Answer 3

After reading this post, I switched to 64bit version (after installing correct JDK) and increased designated memory to 2GB just to shut it up. But I still hit the ceiling, freezes et.c.

Eventually realized, that I had my bower_componentsfolder tracked. Folders like this with tons of javascript-files et.c. will basically eat all ram in the world (I also exclude node_modules folder now, same story). So I right-clicked the node_modules folder > Mark directory as > Exluded. After some garbage-collection, bumped PhpStorm's memory footprint down to 5-600mb, which seems reasonable.

Discretional

Crazy memory/cpu usage has been killing me for weeks. This fixed it right away. Thanks! – Tiernan

Currently you must set the environment variable for the jdk OR edit the startup batch file. Then you must always start Webstorm with a batch file to use x64 (as of now). Here are IntelliJ's instructions for switching to the 64-bit JDK: intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/… – Outbreak

yup mark directory -> excluded is a life saver, this needs to be in JetBrains docs – Enrichetta

Wow.... excluding vendor & giant asset folders. . . saved the day instantly, thanks! (PhpStorm) – Gunrunning

Few years ago excluding directories worked for me very well. But with 2022 version I had to really delete logs and other temp files from excluded directories to reduce memory usage. However it's different with node_modules: excluding this directory helps. – Ergonomics

Answer 4

PhpStorm 2016.1 and newer

As of PhpStorm 2016.1 instead of WEBIDE_JDK_64 one should use JAVA_HOME environment variable that should point to your JVM path.

Versions prior PhpStorm 2016.1

Like it was mentioned in the @LazyOne's answer, as of PhpStorm v8 (already released), you can use PhpStorm64.exe. But I wasn't able to find any description on how to specify the JVM path for it. The document that explains how to select the JDK version, seems to be a bit outdated.

After some research, I discovered that you should create WEBIDE_JDK_64 environment variable that should point to the JRE 64-bit installation path. After doing this, you will be able to start PhpStorm64.exe.

By default it sets max memory to 750mb. If you need more, you can modify the C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PhpStorm 8\bin\PhpStorm64.exe.vmoptions. The better idea, however, would be to edit your user's vmoptions file. Just copy C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PhpStorm 8\bin\PhpStorm64.exe.vmoptions to %USERPROFILE%\.IntelliJIdea12\idea.vmoptions and set -Xmx750m to a higher value.

Fireplug

Answer 5

Simply File > Invalidates Caches / Restart... works for me. 👌😀

Anteater

Thx for the tip :) – Footgear

Answer 6

Help -> Change Memory Settings -> Update Maximum Heap Size to desired value. This fixed issue for me.

Bezoar

maybe this is the modern way to go. my post is quite ancient :) – Adrian

Answer 7

I found a log file in the application which grew from a few KB to over 2 GB during a few seconds due to a bug. Webstorm was trying to index this 2 GB log file and running out of memory. Deleting the log file solved the problem (and then fixing the bug prevented the log file from growing).

Prior to this I also tried running the x64 JDK and increasing XMX to 2048. But in the end a 64 bit environment with 2048 MB wasn't enough (even though 512 MB was always enough before).

Outbreak