Symptoms

JIRA crashes after running out of memory. Logs contain the error message OutOfMemory Errors.

Cause

Tomcat 5 caches JSP content. If JIRA is generating huge responses (eg. multi-megabyte Excel or RSS views), then these cached responses will quickly fill up memory and result in OutOfMemoryErrors.

Resolution

1. In Tomcat 5.5.15+, set the org.apache.jasper.runtime.BodyContentImpl.LIMIT_BUFFER=true property (see Setting Properties and Options on Startup). This is automatically set in JIRA's stand-alone distributions.
2. As a temporary measure, increase JIRA's Heap Space allocation.
3. For a more permanent resolution, upgrade Tomcat.