java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: bitmap size exceeds VM budget - Android

Question

I developed an application that uses lots of images on Android.

The app runs once, fills the information on the screen (Layouts, Listviews,

Answer 1

I suggest a convenient way to solve this problem. Just assign the attribute "android:configChanges" value as followed in the Mainfest.xml for your errored activity. like this:

<activity android:name=".main.MainActivity"
              android:label="mainActivity"
              android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|navigation">
</activity>

the first solution I gave out had really reduced the frequency of OOM error to a low level. But, it did not solve the problem totally. And then I will give out the 2nd solution:

As the OOM detailed, I have used too much runtime memory. So, I reduce the picture size in ~/res/drawable of my project. Such as an overqualified picture which has a resolution of 128X128, could be resized to 64x64 which would also be suitable for my application. And after I did so with a pile of pictures, the OOM error doesn't occur again.

Answer 2

FWIW, here's a lightweight bitmap-cache I coded and have used for a few months. It's not all-the-bells-and-whistles, so read the code before you use it.

/**
 * Lightweight cache for Bitmap objects. 
 * 
 * There is no thread-safety built into this class. 
 * 
 * Note: you may wish to create bitmaps using the application-context, rather than the activity-context. 
 * I believe the activity-context has a reference to the Activity object. 
 * So for as long as the bitmap exists, it will have an indirect link to the activity, 
 * and prevent the garbaage collector from disposing the activity object, leading to memory leaks. 
 */
public class BitmapCache { 

    private Hashtable<String,ArrayList<Bitmap>> hashtable = new Hashtable<String, ArrayList<Bitmap>>();  

    private StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 

    public BitmapCache() { 
    } 

    /**
     * A Bitmap with the given width and height will be returned. 
     * It is removed from the cache. 
     * 
     * An attempt is made to return the correct config, but for unusual configs (as at 30may13) this might not happen.  
     * 
     * Note that thread-safety is the caller's responsibility. 
     */
    public Bitmap get(int width, int height, Bitmap.Config config) { 
        String key = getKey(width, height, config); 
        ArrayList<Bitmap> list = getList(key); 
        int listSize = list.size();
        if (listSize>0) { 
            return list.remove(listSize-1); 
        } else { 
            try { 
                return Bitmap.createBitmap(width, height, config);
            } catch (RuntimeException e) { 
                // TODO: Test appendHockeyApp() works. 
                App.appendHockeyApp("BitmapCache has "+hashtable.size()+":"+listSize+" request "+width+"x"+height); 
                throw e ; 
            }
        }
    }

    /**
     * Puts a Bitmap object into the cache. 
     * 
     * Note that thread-safety is the caller's responsibility. 
     */
    public void put(Bitmap bitmap) { 
        if (bitmap==null) return ; 
        String key = getKey(bitmap); 
        ArrayList<Bitmap> list = getList(key); 
        list.add(bitmap); 
    }

    private ArrayList<Bitmap> getList(String key) {
        ArrayList<Bitmap> list = hashtable.get(key);
        if (list==null) { 
            list = new ArrayList<Bitmap>(); 
            hashtable.put(key, list); 
        }
        return list;
    } 

    private String getKey(Bitmap bitmap) {
        int width = bitmap.getWidth();
        int height = bitmap.getHeight();
        Config config = bitmap.getConfig();
        return getKey(width, height, config);
    }

    private String getKey(int width, int height, Config config) {
        sb.setLength(0); 
        sb.append(width); 
        sb.append("x"); 
        sb.append(height); 
        sb.append(" "); 
        switch (config) {
        case ALPHA_8:
            sb.append("ALPHA_8"); 
            break;
        case ARGB_4444:
            sb.append("ARGB_4444"); 
            break;
        case ARGB_8888:
            sb.append("ARGB_8888"); 
            break;
        case RGB_565:
            sb.append("RGB_565"); 
            break;
        default:
            sb.append("unknown"); 
            break; 
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }

}

Answer 3

It sounds like you have a memory leak. The problem isn't handling many images, it's that your images aren't getting deallocated when your activity is destroyed.

It's difficult to say why this is without looking at your code. However, this article has some tips that might help:

http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2009/01/avoiding-memory-leaks.html

In particular, using static variables is likely to make things worse, not better. You might need to add code that removes callbacks when your application redraws -- but again, there's not enough information here to say for sure.

Answer 4

I've ran into this exact problem. The heap is pretty small so these images can get out of control rather quickly in regards to memory. One way is to give the garbage collector a hint to collect memory on a bitmap by calling its recycle method.

Also, the onDestroy method is not guaranteed to get called. You may want to move this logic/clean up into the onPause activity. Check out the Activity Lifecycle diagram/table on this page for more info.

Answer 5

I had the exact same problem. After a few testing I found that this error is appearing for large image scaling. I reduced the image scaling and the problem disappeared.

P.S. At first I tried to reduce the image size without scaling the image down. That did not stop the error.

Answer 6

To avoid this problem you can use native method Bitmap.recycle() before null-ing Bitmap object (or setting another value). Example:

public final void setMyBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
  if (this.myBitmap != null) {
    this.myBitmap.recycle();
  }
  this.myBitmap = bitmap;
}

And next you can change myBitmap w/o calling System.gc() like:

setMyBitmap(null);    
setMyBitmap(anotherBitmap);