Solved Unable to allocate more memory to PHP in order to avoid "PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted"

[cbeams]

I have imported several years of data from Google Analytics into my Matomo instance, and upon attempting to view a multi-year range of Visits Over Time, I am getting the following error:

Oops… there was a problem during the request. Maybe the server had a temporary issue, or maybe you requested a report with too much data. Please try again. If this error occurs repeatedly please contact your Matomo administrator for assistance.

Looking at the logs, I see out of memory errors like the following:

Feb 08 06:39:17 [Mon Feb 08 05:39:17.396474 2021] [php7:error] [pid 241] [client 172.18.0.1:53456] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 16384 bytes) in /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Statement/Pdo.php on line 233, referer: https://matomo.beams.io/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&date=today&period=day&idSite=4&updated=1
Feb 08 06:39:17 [Mon Feb 08 05:39:17.399492 2021] [php7:error] [pid 241] [client 172.18.0.1:53456] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 163840 bytes) in /app/code/vendor/composer/ClassLoader.php on line 444, referer: https://matomo.beams.io/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&date=today&period=day&idSite=4&updated=1
Feb 08 06:39:17 [Mon Feb 08 05:39:17.400723 2021] [php7:error] [pid 241] [client 172.18.0.1:53456] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'Zend_Db_Statement_Exception' not found in /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Statement/Pdo.php:236\nStack trace:\n#0 /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Statement.php(300): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)\n#1 /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Adapter/Abstract.php(479): Zend_Db_Statement->execute(Array)\n#2 /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Abstract.php(238): Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract->query('INSERT INTO ses...', Array)\n#3 /app/code/core/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php(309): Zend_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Abstract->query('INSERT INTO ses...', Array)\n#4 /app/code/core/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php(122): Piwik\\Db\\Adapter\\Pdo\\Mysql->query('INSERT INTO ses...', Array)\n#5 /app/code/core/Session/SaveHandler/DbTable.php(156): Piwik\\Session\\SaveHandler\\DbTable->query('INSERT INTO ses...', Array)\n#6 [internal function]: Piwik\\Session\\SaveHandler\\DbTable->write('6543b55875760dd...', 'a:17:{s:12:"not...')\n#7 {main}\n thrown in /app/code/libs/Zend/Db/Statement/Pdo.php on line 236, referer: https://matomo.beams.io/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&date=today&period=day&idSite=4&updated=1
Feb 08 06:39:17 [Mon Feb 08 05:39:17.402563 2021] [php7:error] [pid 241] [client 172.18.0.1:53456] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 163840 bytes) in /app/code/vendor/composer/ClassLoader.php on line 444, referer: https://matomo.beams.io/index.php?module=CoreHome&action=index&date=today&period=day&idSite=4&updated=1

The operative line there is:

PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 450560 bytes)

Searching for this error, I came upon this page: https://matomo.org/docs/setup-auto-archiving/#increase-php-memory-limit

Which instructs me to add the following to my php.ini file:

memory_limit = 512M

Note that based on the error message above, "Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted", I assume I currently have 134217728/(1024*1024) = 128M allocated, so bumping to 512M should be more than enough.

Note also that I have allocated 768M RAM to the Matomo container in Config > Resources, so there should be enough to give 512M to PHP as directed in the php.ini file.

After adding this param to the php.ini file, I restarted Matomo. Everything comes back up fine, and I am able to view pages and queries that are less resource intensive, but when I attempt to load the same multi-year Views Over Time query, I end up with the same PHP Fatal Error, indicating that 134217728 of allocated memory has been exhausted.

This suggests to me that the settings in data/php.ini are not in fact being respected as advertised in its comments:

; Settings here are merged with the package's built-in php.ini

Any ideas what could be the problem here? Thanks.

[girish]

@cbeams The package appears to set a a memory limit of 128m at the apache php mod level. I think this can be removed

[girish]

@cbeams I have pushed an update now (package v1.24.0). Can you please check?

[cbeams]

@girish Will do now, and will let you know, thanks!

[cbeams]

@cbeams Everything works as expected now against v1.24.0, thanks!