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Java Platform, Standard Edition Troubleshooting Guide
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# 3.3 Troubleshoot a Crash Instead of OutOfMemoryError

Sometimes an application crashes soon after an allocation from the native heap fails. This occurs with native code that does not check for errors returned by memory allocation functions.

For example, the `malloc` system call returns `null` if there is no memory available. If the return from `malloc` is not checked, then the application might crash when it attempts to access an invalid memory location. Depending on the circumstances, this type of issue can be difficult to locate.

However, sometimes the information from the fatal error log or the crash dump is sufficient to diagnose this issue. The fatal error log is covered in detail in Appendix A. If the cause of the crash is an allocation failure, then determine the reason for the allocation failure. As with any other native heap issue, the system might be configured with insufficient swap space, another process on the system might be consuming all memory resources, or there might be a leak in the application (or in the APIs that it calls) that causes the system to run out of memory.

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