Eclipse crashes with "Unable to create new native thread" - any ideas? (my settings and info inside)

Question

I'm having trouble with Eclipse routinely crapping out on me (and being generally sluggish) and I was wondering if anyone could give me any insight. The message that gets thrown is "Unable to create new native thread." at which point I'm prompted to restart Eclipse. This happens 5 or so times a day.

I'm using Ecliipse Helios Service Release 2 (with Flash Builder plugin) on:

Windows Vista Business
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.20 GHz
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
System Type: 32-bit Operating System

My eclipse.ini settings which were stolen from this thread: What are the best jvm settings for eclipse:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.1.R36x_v20101122_1400.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.2.R36x_v20101222
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
-vm
C:/jdk1.6.0_25/jre/bin/client/jvm.dll
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.6
-Declipse.p2.unsignedPolicy=allow
-Xmn256m
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
-Xss4m
-XX:PermSize=256m
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-XX:CompileThreshold=5
-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=10
-XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=70
-XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing
-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions
-XX:+UseG1GC
-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote

Thanks for any help!

edit:

@normalocity - the error literally just happened (Unhandled event loop exception), this is after adjusting my eclipse.ini (I changed Xss to 1m, MaxPermSize to 384m, Xms to 512). Here is the additional info you asked for, exception stack trace:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread
at java.lang.Thread.start0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Thread.start(Thread.java:640)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$AutoAssistListener.start(ContentAssistant.java:263)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$AutoAssistListener.keyPressed(ContentAssistant.java:345)
at com.adobe.flexide.editorcore.contentassist.FlexContentAssistant$FlexAutoAssistListener.keyPressed(FlexContentAssistant.java:47)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$InternalListener.verifyKey(ContentAssistant.java:811)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.TextViewer$VerifyKeyListenersManager.verifyKey(TextViewer.java:489)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledTextListener.handleEvent(StyledTextListener.java:65)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:84)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1053)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1077)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1062)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.notifyListeners(Widget.java:774)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText.handleKeyDown(StyledText.java:5957)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText$7.handleEvent(StyledText.java:5656)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:84)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1053)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1077)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1062)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendKeyEvent(Widget.java:1103)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendKeyEvent(Widget.java:1099)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.wmChar(Widget.java:1508)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Control.WM_CHAR(Control.java:4270)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Canvas.WM_CHAR(Canvas.java:345)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Control.windowProc(Control.java:4162)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Canvas.windowProc(Canvas.java:341)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.windowProc(Display.java:4873)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.win32.OS.DispatchMessageW(Native Method)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.win32.OS.DispatchMessage(OS.java:2459)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:3655)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runEventLoop(Workbench.java:2640)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runUI(Workbench.java:2604)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.access$4(Workbench.java:2438)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench$7.run(Workbench.java:671)
at org.eclipse.core.databinding.observable.Realm.runWithDefault(Realm.java:332)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:664)
at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:149)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.application.IDEApplication.start(IDEApplication.java:115)
at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.app.EclipseAppHandle.run(EclipseAppHandle.java:196)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(EclipseAppLauncher.java:110)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:79)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:369)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:179)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:620)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:575)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1408)

Palmirapalmistry

(1) is there a more verbose version of the error? If so, please post it. (2) You say it happens several times a day. What are the related events to when it happens (i.e. when Eclipse is trying to show you a code completion, when you hit "Save", when you close a window, etc.)? – Splay

I had the exact same problem at my workplace. It started when we moved from 32-bit Windows Server 2003 to 64-bit Windows 7/2008. We use home-made Eclipse plugins that require a lot of memory, so Eclipse was running with -Xmx1380m. On 64-bit Windows it started crashing with OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread and SWTError: No more handles. Playing with -Xss didn't help. Reducing -Xmx (as some blogs suggest) wasn't an option. Eventually worked around it by upgrading to 64-bit Eclipse and increasing -Xmx to 2 or 3GB. – Vendue

Try to remove -Xss option at all. – Discretional

Answer 1

It appears that there is not enough memory for new thread stack. On Windows, process space is 2GB. For heap you initially allocate 1Gb (-Xms option), so it's locked from the beginning. Minus 256Mb for classes (PermSize), minus JVM overhead which could be as much as 0.5Gb. So as a result, your threads have only about 256Mb for stacks, which is maximum 64 threads (256/4m).

Solution: Try to lower stack size to -Xss1024k or reduce initial heap size (-Xms).

Related reading about OutOfMemory: unable to create thread

As a side note, -XX:MaxPermSize=256m looks too small for Eclipse for EE. Better to set to 384.

Cheers, Max

Discretional

@max how to lower my stack size Xss ?? – Giuliana

Answer 2

I also had trouble with Eclipse Luna on Fedora 20. I've read a lot about different memory options and still couldn't figure out the problem. It drove me crazy.

Finally I realized that by default, the number of processes a regular user can have on Fedora is very limited. Content of limits.d/90-nproc.conf:

*          soft    nproc     1000

Raising this to 5000 fixed my "Unable to create new native thread" problems.

Basis