OutOfMemoryError while deserializing messages

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 73

I have analyzed all the OutOfMemoryErrors happening inside Bitcoin Wallet. More than
50% of it happen here:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: (Heap Size=32519KB, Allocated=30064KB, Bitmap Size=256KB)
at com.google.bitcoin.core.BitcoinSerializer.deserialize(BitcoinSerializer.java:181)
at com.google.bitcoin.core.NetworkConnection.readMessage(NetworkConnection.java:153)
at com.google.bitcoin.core.Peer.run(Peer.java:131)
at com.google.bitcoin.core.PeerGroup$PeerExecutionRunnable$1.run(PeerGroup.java:248)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1027)

By looking at the code, I discoverd BitCoinJ allows a message size of up to 32 MB (Message.MAX_SIZE).
Is this realistic?

On Android, there is typically only a heap of 4 MB, so there is no way to read a 32
MB message into memory completely.

Is it possible to make out a more realistic message size limit, like 1 MB or even less?
Blocks currently cannot be larger than half a meg; is there any larger message in the
Bitcoin protocol?

Also, since the memory allocation at the above line seems to be a neuralgic point,
can we improve error handling at this point? Maybe handle this as a protocol error
(which would not crash the app)? Maybe include more debug info with the exception,
like the message size?

Reported by andreas.schildbach on 2011-08-21 13:48:09

[mikehearn]

Closing with the assumption this was fixed by the patch, please re-open if not.

Reported by [e-mail] on 2011-10-14 21:42:45

• Status changed: Fixed
• Labels added: Component-Logic

[mikehearn]

Patch posted to mailing list.

Reported by [e-mail] on 2011-09-05 14:51:10