Reputation: 2619

Docker desktop eats all memory and crashes

Using Docker Desktop (19.03.13) with 6 containers in Windows 10. Having 16GB RAM.

In docker stats each container consumes 20-500 mb, all together cunsume ~1gb.

But in the Task Manager docker eats ~10gb and crashes from the lack of system memory.

How to check, what consumes so much memory in docker? And how to prevent this?

Upvotes: 43

Answers (10)

Shubham Verma

Reputation: 9961

You can check using the command sudo docker stats and can see the memory allocation for the docker. As per my understanding, your docker is taking memory more than expected.

Solution: It would be best if you allocated less memory, I updated my docker-compose.yaml file and added below line to allocate and reserve the memory for docker as:

  deploy:
   resources:
    limits:
     memory: 512M
    reservations:
     memory: 300M

After adding the above line your docker will take up to 512MB.

Here are sample docker-compose.yaml file

version: '3' # Use version 3 or higher

services: # Use 'services' (plural) to define your services
 backend:
  container_name: track_easy_server_container
  image: track_easy_server_image
  deploy:
   resources:
    limits:
     memory: 512M
    reservations:
     memory: 300M
  build:
   context: .
   target: production
   dockerfile: ./Dockerfile
  command: npm run start:prod
  environment:
   - APP_ENV=PROD
  env_file: .env
  ports:
   - '3010:3010'
  volumes:
   - .:/user/src/app
   - /usr/src/app/node_modules
  restart: unless-stopped

Upvotes: 1

Kerob Manukyan

Reputation: 1

To solve the problem, you need to check if the file is named ".wslconfig.txt" and remove the ".txt" extension if it exists. Renaming the file to ".wslconfig" will resolve the issue.

Upvotes: 0

user11092881

Reputation:

These are the settings I use on my old computer.

[wsl2]
memory=2GB   # Limits VM memory in WSL 2 up to 2GB
processors=2# Makes the WSL 2 VM use two virtual processors
guiApplications=false #you won't use it with docker desktop

Upvotes: 3

Beans

Reputation: 1239

I have my docker taking less than 2% cpu now.

After updating .wslconfig to be:

[wsl2]
memory=8GB
swap=2000
processors=4

... and then restarting Docker, the CPU consumption was still over 80% and there were 5 Docker Desktop processes (each taking 17-18%) in Windows Task Manager. I reset Docket to Factory and still the CPU pegged at 80% or more.

I then deleted the .docker folder (in windows the path is %USERPROFILE%/.docker) as suggested by jmichalek-fp. I took care to do a Shift-DEL so as not to move it to the recylce bin because I remember in the past recycled items were still found by processes that hold a link to the file.

After Factory Reset, then increasing .wslconfig resources, then deleting .docker folder and then restarting Docker, it is now running only one Docker Desktop process, and, with a NodeJs app running in it, it is consuming between 0.5% and 2% CPU.

I found "delete .docker folder" in this github issue: https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/12266

Upvotes: 6

Leo

Reputation: 1231

Try to create a .wslconfig file at the root of your User folder C:\Users\<my-user> to adjust how much memory & processors Docker will use.

This is the content of the .wslconfig file.

[wsl2]
memory=2GB   # Limits VM memory in WSL 2 up to 2GB
processors=2# Makes the WSL 2 VM use two virtual processors

Then, restart the computer. You will find the Vemm process will only take the amount of RAM you defined previously.

You can learn more here here

Upvotes: 54

Alejandro Pérez

Reputation: 231

If you are using WSL2 put into the .wslconfig the middle of your ram. I don't know why but I had the same problem with 8GB RAM.

This is my .wslconfig

[wsl2]
memory=4GB # I have 8GB RAM
processors=2

And the result was good because the consumption is good! In this moment I have running a Docker with 8 images:

Upvotes: 12

cinqS

Reputation: 1223

Although this problem is already marked as SOLVED

There is still another reason for this, in recently updated versions.

You might enable too many resources for docker hyperkit.

Go to settings - resources - advanced check if you spared too much resource there.

Upvotes: 5

Abdulaziz Hamdan

Reputation: 373

I guess you are using the new WSL 2 based engine, try switching docker engine back to Hyper-V by going opening docker settings -> general -> uncheck Use WSL 2 based Engine .

To explain:

I noticed it started happening to me since WSL 2 engine was introduced, i automatically switched to it since it's a new engine; Memory issues started arising since then.

Restarting/closing docker did not free the memory and i noticed in task Manager Vemm was the one eating all memory, so had to force close it (caused docker not to work).

Last thing i did was switching docker engine back to Hyper-V solved my high memory usage.

Upvotes: 11

inser

Reputation: 1210

As I know docker stats does not show RAM reservations. Try to put RAM limits using -m flag. There are some information how to control resources using docker: https://docs.docker.com/config/containers/resource_constraints/?spm=a2c41.12663380.0.0.59ed566dAqUZPu

Upvotes: 1

Don M

Reputation: 986

I am guessing on Windows there is something similar to what exists on MacOS.

Open your docker app and go to the dashboard
Click any container
Click Stats

You will get information regarding your CPU, RAM Usage, Disk Read & Write Memory & Network usage.

When I had memory issues, which I used to frequently, I would setup alias scripts that I could chain together to stop/kill/restart and do what ever setup I needed on the containers.

There is no preventing docker behaving the way it behaves unless you want to start contributing to and making pull requests. This isn't an uncommon issue. Docker is a free service, I recommend working around it's short comings.

Upvotes: -6

Docker desktop eats all memory and crashes

Answers (10)

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