Oracle EBS WebLogic 10.3 – SBU patching “GC overhead limit exceeded” error

When using the BSU (Smart Update) utility to patch your Oracle EBS WebLogic 10.3 you may experience “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: GC overhead limit exceeded” errors.

[applvis@z-oracle1 bsu]$ ./bsu.sh -install -patch_download_dir=/u06/oracle/VIS/fs1/FMW_Home/utils/bsu/cache_dir -patchlist=EQDE -prod_dir=/u06/oracle/VIS/fs1/FMW_Home/wlserver_10.3

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: GC overhead limit exceeded

at java.util.HashMap.inflateTable(HashMap.java:316)

at java.util.HashMap.put(HashMap.java:488)

at com.bea.cie.common.dao.xbean.XBeanDataHandler.loadPropertyMap(XBeanDataHandler.java:778)

at com.bea.cie.common.dao.xbean.XBeanDataHandler.(XBeanDataHandler.java:99)

at com.bea.cie.common.dao.xbean.XBeanDataHandler.createDataHandler(XBeanDataHandler.java:559)

at com.bea.cie.common.dao.xbean.XBeanDataHandler.getComplexValue(XBeanDataHandler.java:455)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.dao.cat.PatchCatalogHelper.getPatchDependencies(PatchCatalogHelper.java:442)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.dao.cat.PatchCatalogHelper.getPatchDependencies(PatchCatalogHelper.java:464)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.dao.cat.PatchCatalog.getPatchDependencies(PatchCatalog.java:56)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.dao.cat.PatchCatalogHelper.getInvalidatedPatchMap(PatchCatalogHelper.java:1621)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.PatchSystem.updatePatchCatalog(PatchSystem.java:436)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.PatchSystem.refresh(PatchSystem.java:130)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.PatchSystem.setCacheDir(PatchSystem.java:201)

at com.bea.plateng.patch.Patch.main(Patch.java:281)

Issue

The issue is due to the fact that the bsu.sh script does not allocate adequate memory to the JAVA process.

Resolution

To fix this backup the current bsu.sh script and amend the initial JAVA memory allocation (Xms) and maximum heap size (Xms) values to address the memory issues e.g.

MEM_ARGS=”-Xms512m -Xmx1024m -XX:+UseParallelGC”

to

MEM_ARGS=”-Xms2048m -Xmx2048m -XX:+UseParallelGC”

Results

[applvis@z-oracle1 bsu]$ ./bsu.sh -install -patch_download_dir=/u06/oracle/VIS/fs1/FMW_Home/utils/bsu/cache_dir -patchlist=EQDE -prod_dir=/u06/oracle/VIS/fs1/FMW_Home/wlserver_10.3
Checking for conflicts…….
No conflict(s) detected

Installing Patch ID: EQDE.
Result: Success

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