Failed to start Glassfish after increasing heap size

Question

I want to increase the heap size of my Glassfish. For that, I know that I can go up to 4GB:

java -Xmx4000M -version
java version "1.6.0_26"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_26-b03-384-10M3425)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.1-b02-384, mixed mode)

I tried to set in domain.xml file the -Xmx to 2GB:

<jvm-options>-Xmx2000m</jvm-options>

But I am getting the following error:

asadmin> start-domain
Waiting for ... to start .Error starting domain ...
The server exited prematurely with exit code 1.
Before it died, it produced the following output:

Error occurred during initialization of VM
The size of the object heap + VM data exceeds the maximum representable size
launchctl bsexec failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

Launching the command with -v option gives this:

12 oct. 2011 11:46:34 com.sun.enterprise.admin.launcher.GFLauncherLogger info
INFO: JVM invocation command line:
/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java
-XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions
-XX:MaxPermSize=512m
-XX:NewRatio=2
-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
-Xmx2000m
-Xms1000m
...
12 oct. 2011 11:46:35 com.sun.enterprise.admin.launcher.GFLauncherLogger info
INFO: Successfully launched in 45 msec.
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
Command start-domain failed.

Answer 1

I found the problem. For some reasons which I do not understand, the "-d32" argument was passed in the command, asking to start in 32 bits mode. When adding

<jvm-options>-d64</jvm-options>

to the domain.xml file, glassfish starts. Please note that this option is not present by default in the file.

Answer 2

you must be using a different Java install when doing the "-version" and from within GlassFish. I can reproduce the same error with the default "java" in Mac OS' path but not when using an absolute path :

% /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java -Xmx2300m -version
java version "1.6.0_26"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_26-b03-383-11A511)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.1-b02-383, mixed mode)
% java -Xmx2300m -version
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

Answer 3

Could it be that you don't have enough disk space on your system? Reserving 4GB of RAM may require MAC OS to expand swap space, and you may not have the disk space to do this. Unfortunately, this has burned me before :-/