laravel composer update runs out of memory

Question

I am trying to update laravel repository using \'php composer.phar update\' command. But I am getting this error -

- Removing symfony/translation (v2.4.8)
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Answer 1

The error you're seeing

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'proc_open(): fork failed - Cannot allocate memory' in phar:///var/www/fyc/composer.phar/vend or/symfony/console/Symfony/Component/Console/Application.php:983

Indicates the server literally ram out of RAM/memory and had to halt. Changing your PHP memory_limit won't solve this. When PHP fails because it hit its internal memory limit, you get a nice "tried to allocate XXX bytes of a total XXXXXX bytes" style error message.

Composer can eat up a lot of memory when it's trying to resolve version dependencies. The three things I'd try here are

1. Rename or delete your vendor folder and try re-installing instead of updating. Composer's sometimes better about memory when it's not trying to resolve a version dependency with existing installed versions

2. Get a server with more memory

3. Investigate what else may be eating up a lot of RAM on your server