emacs startup warning "Emergency (alloc): Warning: past 95% of memory limit"

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3
  • emacs-23.1-21.el6_2.3.ppc64

Issue

  • Starting up emacs produces:
  Emergency (alloc): Warning: past 95% of memory limit

Resolution

Update emacs package to emacs-23.1-28.el6 released with Advisory RHBA-2015:0238-1 or newer.

Root Cause

Previously, the data_space_start value was set inaccurately. As a consequence, emacs returned the following memory warning message:

Emergency (alloc): Warning: past 95% of memory limit

To fix this bug, data_space_start has been set correctly, and emacs no longer
returns warning messages.

Diagnostic Steps

When the following commands are executed on ppc64, the warning appears:

$ ulimit -v 262144
$ emacs

This is, however, a false warning, which can be checked by ps:

$ ps -C emacs -o vsz
   VSZ
147968
$

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