MemoryError: std::bad_alloc using the chia-create-plots command on Debian 10

Hello

I am running Chia on a Debian 10 Virtual Private Server with following features :

• CPU : Atom N2800
• Cores/Threads : 2c/4t
• CPU Frequency : 1,86GHz
• RAM : 4Go DDR3 1066 MHz
• Disk space : 2Tb

I issued the following command : nohup chia-create-plots -k 30 -n 5 & and then connected back later, but the 5 requested plots had not been created.

Below I have copied the content of the nohup.out file : cat nohup.out.k30.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Creating 5 plots, from index 0 to 4, of size 30, sk_seed [...] ppk <PublicKey 185d6c19e16bacca4073a2944942091fb88a91a52b0bca7fdaaa9a7fb86fa8661314c9c4ece19117d4849ad08dc08160>

Starting plotting progress into temporary dirs: . and .
Memo: 
ID: [...]
Plot size is: 30
Buffer size is: 2147483648

Starting phase 1/4: Forward Propagation into "./plot-k30-2020-07-07-21-14-[...].dat.tmp" ... Tue Jul  7 21:14:58 2020
Wrote: 146
Computing table 1
F1 complete, Time =  1780.83 seconds. CPU (92.22%) Tue Jul  7 21:44:39 2020
Computing table 2 at position 0x24000009b
        Sorting table 1
        Sort time: 2427.8 seconds. CPU (66.28%) Tue Jul  7 22:25:07 2020
        Total matches: 1073730847. Per bucket: 954.364
        Computation pass time: 5221.1 seconds. CPU (90.08%) Tue Jul  7 23:52:08 2020
Forward propagation table time: 7649.49 seconds. CPU (82.52%) Tue Jul  7 23:52:08 2020
Computing table 3 at position 0x6bffcfcdb
        Sorting table 2
        Sort time: 4270.64 seconds. CPU (64.77%) Wed Jul  8 01:03:19 2020
        Total matches: 1073771850. Per bucket: 954.401
        Computation pass time: 5567.78 seconds. CPU (86.78%) Wed Jul  8 02:36:07 2020
Forward propagation table time: 9839.02 seconds. CPU (77.22%) Wed Jul  8 02:36:07 2020
Computing table 4 at position 0xd0008712e
        Sorting table 3
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/debian/chia-blockchain/venv/bin/chia-create-plots", line 33, in <module>
    sys.exit(load_entry_point('chia-blockchain', 'console_scripts', 'chia-create-plots')())
  File "/home/debian/chia-blockchain/src/cmds/create_plots.py", line 158, in main
    args.buffer,
MemoryError: std::bad_alloc```

[hoffmang9]

You should use Beta 1.9 (which is compatible with plots and keys from Beta 1.8 only) and also try -b 512 as well.

[thomashuber]

Hello wjblanke, hello hoffmang9

just wanted to confirm / get back to you: issuing the command nohup chia plots create -k 28 -n 10 -b 512 & gave back the expected results. So it seems that indeed the -k 29 size is too big for this machine.

Is there a way (maybe more detailled debug log for example or another technique / tool) by which I can gain knowledge of which feature / characteristic of the machine I should improve to be able to create -k 29 -n 10 plots? If I remember well there is a recommendation to keep the number of plots less than 200, so the bigger they are, the better 😃?

I am also looking forward for how to monitor the performance of the farming process on the machine, in the command-line-only environment (for example: knowing the global network size, knowing the average time I need to farm 1 block with my current plots, and show my wallet to be able to check that I actually earned the number of blocks I can expect for a given amount of time). But maybe there is already existing documentation for this topic?

Thank you for your help, have a nice week!