System.OutOfMemoryException on USBizi

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

I get an error that says:
“An unhandled exception of type ‘System.OutOfMemoryException’ occurred in System.IO.dll”

What makes it odd is that there appears to be plenty of memory to allocated to the request. But I don’t know much about the way .net allocates memory.

The board will run for hours before I see this message and at least right now seems very intermittent. It may crash at other places.

The times I have seen it crash it has always been during a SD card operation.

I am using a board based on USBizi with the following software
GHI NETMF v4.1 SDK Build Date: 11:01 AM 1/6/2012
GHI NETMF SDK v1.0.18 12/21/2011
GHI .NET Gadgeteer SDK v1.0.3.0 1/5/2012
GHI OSH NETMF SDK v1.0.2 1/6/2012

I checked the newer distribution files but I did not see anything that specifically addressed this problem.

The call that crashed was:
FileStream queueHandle = new FileStream(mailPath, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.ReadWrite);

-------------- Debug Output ---------------

Add file to queue: \SD\mailq\new\1297_2012-3-19_21-55-1.bin
GC: 3msec 44148 bytes used, 20232 bytes available
Type 0F (STRING ): 1260 bytes
Type 11 (CLASS ): 5916 bytes
Type 12 (VALUETYPE ): 156 bytes
Type 13 (SZARRAY ): 3888 bytes
Type 15 (FREEBLOCK ): 20232 bytes
Type 17 (ASSEMBLY ): 15276 bytes
Type 18 (WEAKCLASS ): 48 bytes
Type 19 (REFLECTION ): 24 bytes
Type 1B (DELEGATE_HEAD ): 252 bytes
Type 1D (OBJECT_TO_EVENT ): 480 bytes
Type 1E (BINARY_BLOB_HEAD ): 6960 bytes
Type 1F (THREAD ): 2688 bytes
Type 20 (SUBTHREAD ): 336 bytes
Type 21 (STACK_FRAME ): 4164 bytes
Type 27 (FINALIZER_HEAD ): 504 bytes
Type 31 (IO_PORT ): 468 bytes
Type 33 (I2C_XACTION ): 48 bytes
Type 34 (APPDOMAIN_HEAD ): 72 bytes
Type 36 (APPDOMAIN_ASSEMBLY ): 1608 bytes
Failed allocation for 89 blocks, 1068 bytes

#### Exception System.OutOfMemoryException - CLR_E_OUT_OF_MEMORY (8) ####
#### Message:
#### Microsoft.SPOT.IO.NativeFileStream::.ctor [IP: 0000] ####
#### System.IO.FileStream::.ctor [IP: 010c] ####
#### System.IO.FileStream::.ctor [IP: 0009] ####
#### SDLogging.SDLogger::sendAlarmReport [IP: 01da] ####
#### DigiRadio.DIGIRadioCom::tanksat_processFrame [IP: 05c2] ####
#### DigiRadio.DIGIRadioCom::digi_SearchForValidFrame [IP: 0084] ####
#### DigiRadio.DIGIRadioCom::DIGIThreadFunction [IP: 00fa] ####

DigiThread=True
GC: 4msec 47136 bytes used, 17244 bytes available
Type 0F (STRING ): 1416 bytes
Type 11 (CLASS ): 6048 bytes
Type 12 (VALUETYPE ): 180 bytes
Type 13 (SZARRAY ): 4068 bytes
Type 15 (FREEBLOCK ): 17244 bytes
Type 17 (ASSEMBLY ): 15276 bytes
Type 18 (WEAKCLASS ): 48 bytes
Type 19 (REFLECTION ): 24 bytes
Type 1B (DELEGATE_HEAD ): 252 bytes
Type 1D (OBJECT_TO_EVENT ): 480 bytes
Type 1E (BINARY_BLOB_HEAD ): 8100 bytes
Type 1F (THREAD ): 2688 bytes
Type 20 (SUBTHREAD ): 336 bytes
Type 21 (STACK_FRAME ): 5520 bytes
Type 27 (FINALIZER_HEAD ): 504 bytes
Type 31 (IO_PORT ): 468 bytes
Type 33 (I2C_XACTION ): 48 bytes
Type 34 (APPDOMAIN_HEAD ): 72 bytes
Type 36 (APPDOMAIN_ASSEMBLY ): 1608 bytes
03/19/2012 21:55:02
GC: 3msec 46212 bytes used, 18168 bytes available
A first chance exception of type ‘System.OutOfMemoryException’ occurred in Microsoft.SPOT.IO.dll
Type 0F (STRING ): 1356 bytes
Type 11 (CLASS ): 5976 bytes
Type 12 (VALUETYPE ): 180 bytes
Type 13 (SZARRAY ): 3996 bytes
Type 15 (FREEBLOCK ): 18168 bytes
Type 17 (ASSEMBLY ): 15276 bytes
Type 18 (WEAKCLASS ): 48 bytes
Type 19 (REFLECTION ): 24 bytes
Type 1B (DELEGATE_HEAD ): 252 bytes
Type 1D (OBJECT_TO_EVENT ): 480 bytes
Type 1E (BINARY_BLOB_HEAD ): 8280 bytes
Type 1F (THREAD ): 2688 bytes
Type 20 (SUBTHREAD ): 336 bytes
Type 21 (STACK_FRAME ): 4620 bytes
Type 27 (FINALIZER_HEAD ): 504 bytes
Type 31 (IO_PORT ): 468 bytes
Type 33 (I2C_XACTION ): 48 bytes
Type 34 (APPDOMAIN_HEAD ): 72 bytes
Type 36 (APPDOMAIN_ASSEMBLY ): 1608 bytes
A first chance exception of type ‘System.OutOfMemoryException’ occurred in System.IO.dll
GC: 3msec 50160 bytes used, 14220 bytes available
Type 0F (STRING ): 1332 bytes
Type 11 (CLASS ): 5952 bytes
Type 12 (VALUETYPE ): 180 bytes
Type 13 (SZARRAY ): 3996 bytes
Type 15 (FREEBLOCK ): 14220 bytes
Type 17 (ASSEMBLY ): 15276 bytes
Type 18 (WEAKCLASS ): 48 bytes
Type 19 (REFLECTION ): 24 bytes
Type 1B (DELEGATE_HEAD ): 252 bytes
Type 1D (OBJECT_TO_EVENT ): 480 bytes
Type 1E (BINARY_BLOB_HEAD ): 12480 bytes
Type 1F (THREAD ): 2688 bytes
Type 20 (SUBTHREAD ): 336 bytes
Type 21 (STACK_FRAME ): 4416 bytes
Type 27 (FINALIZER_HEAD ): 504 bytes
Type 31 (IO_PORT ): 468 bytes
Type 33 (I2C_XACTION ): 48 bytes
Type 34 (APPDOMAIN_HEAD ): 72 bytes
Type 36 (APPDOMAIN_ASSEMBLY ): 1608 bytes
An unhandled exception of type ‘System.OutOfMemoryException’ occurred in System.IO.dll

2

Before ton allocate large blocks, for gc for compaction

Debug.gc(true)

3

How often should this be done?

Is it thread safe to call?

BTW I tired calling it in a main loop every 5 seconds. It seems to crash things.

4

Only use before you allocate large buffers.

5

will referencing every piece of software released by GHI in a usbizi project cause a problem?

6

This error gave me in the past also headbreakers.

In the end I ended up with adding a call to Debug.GC before opening a filestream. I use it in single and multithreaded programs. Since then I never ran into the issue again.

I did also play a little with the buffer size, which I think can cause problems when free memory is a problem.


            Debug.GC(true);
            using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("MyFile", FileMode.CreateNew, FileAccess.ReadWrite, FileShare.None, 256))
            {
                try
                {
                    // Do FileStream actions here...
                }
                finally
                {
                    fs.Close();
                }
            }