Memory fragmentation Problem

[mpabilona]

Jun 22 05:14:05.548: %SYS-2-MALLOCFAIL:

any idea about the cause of the problem ?

Memory allocation of 276 bytes failed from 0x6074728C, alignment 32

Pool: I/O Free: 7040 Cause: Memory fragmentation

Alternate Pool: None Free: 0 Cause: No Alternate pool

[albert.remo]

Hi!

We have encountered the same problem before. This type of MALLOC failure is caused by memory fragmentation. Meaning the router sees the part of the memory as fragments and when the router access these parts of the memory, the router will go to MALLOC saying that these memory addresses are not free. Unfortunately, the IOS thus not support defragmenting these parts of the memory. The way to resolve this problem is to either reload the router to defragmentize these parts of the memory or ungrade the memory because these error is also an indication that your router has not enough memory. You can check the memory allocations using the "show memory summary" command on the router.

Regards,

Albert Ü

[praveen.apr30]

Hi  albert,

Thanks for the nice explination .

i have one morequestion.

Does it require a hard reload or soft reload?

what makes the difference if it a soft or hard?

It will be great ,if you could share the links related to this :)

thanks in advance

Praveen

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

It requires the IOS to be restarted so it's data structures are rebuilt.

Traditionally, there's two ways to restart the IOS, one is to power cycle the device, the second is to "reload" the IOS.  Some devices can now support warm reloads, if so configured.  For these, the IOS image isn't reloaded, but the IOS is restarted.

[praveen.apr30]

Hi Joseph,

Good day!!!

Thanks for sharing your views...

from the above post i could understand that a router reload can fix the issue. But what do you mean by ISO reload and how to do it.

Can u expalin..

How do you differentiate Warm reload and IOS reload...

Thanks in advance.... :)

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

See http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios/fundamentals/configuration/guide/15_1s/cf_15_1s_book/warm_reload.html

[praveen.apr30]

Thanks joseph..

This is soooper sooper cooool :)

[Steve Rodrigue]

I got a similar issue on 2 C3550-12T (c3550-i5q3l2-mz.121-14.EA1a.bin). This happened when our customer changed the default spanning-tree cost on one interface in his C3750. What's strange is that both C3550 got the exact same error message at the same moment. It's why I suspect an IOS bug... More investigation needed.

Aug 12 14:10:55.613: %SYS-2-MALLOCFAIL: Memory allocation of 1680 bytes failed from 0x164AD4, alignment 0

Pool: I/O Free: 2624 Cause: Memory fragmentation

Alternate Pool: None Free: 0 Cause: No Alternate pool

-Process= "Pool Manager", ipl= 0, pid= 5

-Traceback= 1ABD2C 1AD358 164AD8 1B933C 1B9584 1CCCD8

[InayathUlla Sharieff]

Steve ,  I will check for the bug tommorow and let u know..very tired today sorry.

[dimmesoete]

Hello, I have the same issue with a remote industrial IR809 router.  I am able to PuTTY into the device but I cannot break the repeating "Memory Fragmentation . . ." error in order to get a command prompt and submit a Reload command.  Is there any way around this, or do I need to have someone physically power cycle the router?

Thank you,

Dan

[Richard Burts]

Dan

You say that you PuTTY into the device. Can you clarify whether this is a console connection or a telnet/SSH connection? Not being able to break repeating error messages sounds like a console connection. But you describe it as a remote device which sounds a bit more like telnet/SSH. If it is a console connection, would it be possible to telnet or SSH into the device? If you do not do terminal monitor the telnet or SSH should not be impacted by fragmentation error messages.

HTH

Rick

[scottmac]

Memory Fragmentation is usually the result of a "Memory Leak" (i.e., "a bug").

Update your IOS.

More memory just means it'll take longer to reach the time when all of the memory is too fragmented to use (System needs X, biggest available fragment is less than X).

Good Luck

Scott

[aservin]

show stacks

or

show tech-support

Then paste the output of any of the commands to the output interpreter. Sometimes it can tell you what is the bug that is causing the problem.

Normaly the MALLOC failures are because software´s bugs.

-as