Problem

JIRA is unable to startup on a Windows machine.

The following appears in the Tomcat log, for example jira-stdout.2015-04-29.log:

2015-04-29 00:28:22 Commons Daemon procrun stdout initialized
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap

Diagnosis

Environment

• JIRA is running on a Windows 32-bit operating system.

Diagnostic Steps

• The architecture of the operating system can be confirmed by reviewing the logs for the below or following the instructions in How to determine whether a computer is running a 32-bit version or 64-bit version of the Windows operating system.

       os.arch                                       : x86

Cause

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is not able to obtain the amount of memory that is required from the operating system, and will fail with the above error. This is because of the operating system limitations on 32-bit architecture and the way JVM needs contiguous memory blocks to run. Windows DLLs fragment the address space, so the limitation of memory is around 1400mb for a single Java process. This is explained in further detail in Java maximum memory on Windows XP.

Workaround

Reduce the amount of maximum memory (Xms) that is provided to JIRA until the JVM can start.

Resolution

Migrate onto a 64-bit operating system and use the 64-bit standalone of JIRA from our JIRA downloads section.