KB-1521 Export to Excel smart service fails with insufficient memory error

Symptoms

While running the OOTB Export to Excel smart service, the node fails and the following error is seen in the application server log:

INFO  [stdout] (Appian Work Item - 535374 - ProcessExec01 : UnattendedJavaActivityRequest) 2018-01-22 06:30:38,869 [Appian Work Item - 535374 - P rocessExec01 : UnattendedJavaActivityRequest] ERROR com.appiancorp.process.engine.UnattendedJavaActivityRequest - An error occurred while executing activity: id=268449513, classname=com.appiancorp.process.runtime.activities.DataExportEntitySmartService5 INFO  [stdout] (Appian Work Item - 535374 - ProcessExec01 : UnattendedJavaActivityRequest) com.appiancorp.suiteapi.process.exceptions.SmartServic eException: The export operation has been aborted due to insufficient memory. Consider filtering your data, or reducing the number of columns being fetched if  you are trying to export a large data set.

Cause

The amount of data in the current batch being exported is larger than the currently configured query memory limit.

This limitation has been reported to the Appian Product Team as AN-100029.

Action

Self-managed customers may increase the query memory limit to allow larger batches of data to be processed. Please take note of the memory and performance considerations mentioned in the query memory limit documentation before increasing this setting by a large amount. As noted in the Appian Cloud FAQ, this change is not possible on cloud environments:

Shut down the application server.
In custom.properties, increase the value of conf.data.memory.limit by 1048576 (1 MB).
Start the application server.
Repeat steps 1-3 until the node succeeds.

Alternatively, customers should:

Reduce the number of columns being exported.
Reduce the size of any large columns being exported (e.g. a column defined as varchar(10000)).

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian version 17.4 and later.

Last Reviewed: March 2018