The build step fails

[Cindy Qi Li]

Describe the bug

The Netlify build for the WeCount website has been failing since August. The reported Error is:

8:32:56 PM: <--- Last few GCs --->
8:32:56 PM: [8646:0x6020bf0]    83544 ms: Mark-sweep 4040.6 (4137.0) -> 4027.7 (4140.8) MB, 1053.6 / 0.0 ms  (average mu = 0.314, current mu = 0.039) allocation failure scavenge might not succeed
8:32:56 PM: [8646:0x6020bf0]    84654 ms: Mark-sweep 4044.0 (4140.8) -> 4031.0 (4144.3) MB, 1061.0 / 0.0 ms  (average mu = 0.197, current mu = 0.044) allocation failure scavenge might not succeed
8:32:56 PM: <--- JS stacktrace --->
8:32:56 PM: FATAL ERROR: Reached heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory
8:32:56 PM:  1: 0xb090e0 node::Abort() [node]
8:32:56 PM:  2: 0xa1b70e  [node]
8:32:56 PM:  3: 0xce1a20 v8::Utils::ReportOOMFailure(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, bool) [node]
8:32:56 PM:  4: 0xce1dc7 v8::internal::V8::FatalProcessOutOfMemory(v8::internal::Isolate*, char const*, bool) [node]
8:32:56 PM:  5: 0xe99435  [node]
8:32:56 PM:  6: 0xea90fd v8::internal::Heap::CollectGarbage(v8::internal::AllocationSpace, v8::internal::GarbageCollectionReason, v8::GCCallbackFlags) [node]
8:32:56 PM:  7: 0xeabdfe v8::internal::Heap::AllocateRawWithRetryOrFailSlowPath(int, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin, v8::internal::AllocationAlignment) [node]
8:32:56 PM:  8: 0xe6d33a v8::internal::Factory::NewFillerObject(int, bool, v8::internal::AllocationType, v8::internal::AllocationOrigin) [node]
8:32:56 PM:  9: 0x11e61e6 v8::internal::Runtime_AllocateInYoungGeneration(int, unsigned long*, v8::internal::Isolate*) [node]
8:32:56 PM: 10: 0x15d9e59  [node]
8:32:58 PM: Aborted (core dumped)
8:32:58 PM: ERROR: build:eleventy exited with 134.

To Reproduce

Login Netlify and check the build status, the build step has been failing since a month ago.

Steps to reproduce the behavior locally:

1. Run npm run build or npm start
2. All fail with "Javascript heap out of memory" error.

Expected behavior

The build step should pass.

Solution

Setting the Netlify environment variable NODE_OPTIONS=”–max-old-space-size=4096” doesn't help. See the discussion about this solution here.

As the build also fails locally without Netlify, the eleventy suggested solution that runs the eleventy command with --max-old-space-size=6000 fixed the problem.