Application log shows container “is running beyond physical memory limits” error

This post explain what you need to do when you see container “is running beyond physical memory limits” error in the hive application log. Symptoms: Hive query failed with the following error in the application log:

2015-07-06 09:53:30,004 INFO [AsyncDispatcher event handler] org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.v2.app.job.impl.TaskAttemptImpl: 
Diagnostics report from attempt_1435155934213_16721_m_002655_0: 
Container [pid=46028,containerID=container_e54_1435155934213_16721_01_003666] is running beyond physical memory limits. 
Current usage: 1.0 GB of 1 GB physical memory used; 2.7 GB of 2.1 GB virtual memory used. Killing container.

Cause: There is not enough memory allocated to each container that will trigger the map tasks Solution: Find out the current memory for container and map task

SET mapreduce.map.memory.mb;
SET mapreduce.map.java.opts;

Then increase the heap size for both of them in Hive, the heap size for map task should slightly smaller than the container memory

SET mapreduce.map.memory.mb=2048;
SET mapreduce.map.java.opts=-Xmx1800M;

Then run the query again.

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