update-apt-xapi causes Wordpress server to run out of memory

March 3, 2015 1.3k views
Nickyc95
By:
Nickyc95

Hi there,

A couple of weeks ago I started getting an error on wordpress (Error establishing a database connection) and I just checked my site and it is down again.

After logging into the control panel console I see an error somthing along the lines of "Out of memory - Killing process 556 update-apt-xapi"

This has happened a few times and causes the site to get knocked offline.

What can I do to resolve this?

Thanks

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1 Answer
williamjeccles March 3, 2015

Hi,

I'm assuming you're using the $5 "512MB" droplet?

You could try resizing to the $10 1GB RAM droplet and monitor. Adding this extra headroom would allow you to monitor the droplet for signs of a memory leak in your application.

This would help keep your site online during your investigations.
If this resolves the problem but cost/budget is a problem moving forward you could add a swap space partition to the server which will help it remain online during a load spike, in your case while apt updates.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-14-04

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,
William

How To Add Swap on Ubuntu 14.04
by Justin Ellingwood
Swap space can be used as an "overflow" area for your system when you run out of RAM. The operating system can store data that would normally be kept in RAM on the hard drive in a specially formatted file. In this guide, we'll demonstrate how to create and use one of these files in Ubuntu 14.04.
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