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What are the possible causes to get a 'maximum_memory' error while executing a query on a large dataset?
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At times, the engine may run out of memory while executing a complex query and may throw a 'maximum_memory' error such as:
ERROR 1712 ER_MEMSQL_OOM: Leaf Error (<>): Leaf Error (<>): Leaf Error (<>): Memory used by MemSQL (<> Mb) has reached the 'maximum_memory' setting (<> Mb) on this node.
Possible causes include (1) available query execution memory has been used up for table memory (in use table memory: <> Mb) and
(2) the query is large and complex and requires more query execution memory than is available (in use query execution memory <> Mb).
We can resolve this issue in multiple ways, all of which would reduce memory consumption by the query execution. You can consider trying some of the following items:
- Ensure the table type is columnstore since columnstore tables write to the disk and not to memory.
- Enable spilling to reduce the memory usage by 'HashGroupBy' operations(if any) by setting the global variable as
SET GLOBAL enable_spilling = ON
. You can control when to start spilling with the variablesspilling_node_memory_threshold_ratio
andspilling_query_operator_memory_threshold
. This feature is available from SingleStore version 7.6 (partially 7.5) and above. Please note, since spilling is a global feature, other queries could also spill if the condition is met and may result in a longer execution time. - Change the shard key to match 'group by' columns. This helps the 'group by' to use up to #num_leaves times less memory.
- Change the sort key to match 'group by' columns. This possibly makes the 'group by' streaming and using constant memory.
- Change SUM(IF(..., 1, 0)) to COUNT(IF(..., 1, NULL)), and change SUM(X) to SUM(X :> double) if precision loss is ok. This is because Integer SUM uses 2.5x more memory than floating-point sum and 5x more memory than COUNT.
- It's also possible to split the query into multiple queries, each computing a subset of aggregates at a time. This would need to be done carefully as it may come with a performance overhead, though.
You can use the following query to identify the 10 most consumed memory queries:
select act.Activity_name, act.database_name, q.query_text, act.memory_bs, act.memory_bs / (act.run_count + act.success_count) as memory_adjusted, act.network_b, act.disk_b, act.cpu_time_ms, act.last_finished_timestamp, act.run_count, act.success_count
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.mv_activities_cumulative act
left join INFORMATION_SCHEMA.mv_queries q
on act.activity_name = q.activity_name
where act.activity_type = 'Query'
order by (act.memory_bs / (act.run_count + act.success_count)) desc
limit 10;
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