# RuntimeError: Failed to allocate Memory!
**URL:** https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 20, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773 "2020-09-20T14:32:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@radhen](https://discuss.pynq.io/u/radhen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773/1 "2020-09-20T14:32:50Z")
Dear @PeterOgden @rock @gnatale
How are you? I hope you are doing well
Hi, I am doing data processing on PYNQ Z2, it is doing well, until I increase the dataset.
> source\_data = np.memmap(‘…/dataset/10MB.txt’, dtype=np.uint8)
> input\_buffer = xlnk.cma\_array(shape=source\_data.shape, dtype=np.int32)
so just using 10MB text file dataset, it already give an error messages:
> **RuntimeError: Failed to allocate Memory!**
Would you mind letting me know how to handle a big size dataset?
Thank you.
---
### Author:  [@radhen](https://discuss.pynq.io/u/radhen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773/2 "2020-09-20T14:51:09Z")
I solved it already. It turn out I need to overcommit memory, delete buffer and reset jupyter notebook.
echo 1 \> /proc/sys/vm/overcommit\_memory
Hopefully help others who face this issues too.
Thank you.
---
### Author:  [@rock](https://discuss.pynq.io/u/rock)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773/3 "2020-09-21T15:49:59Z")
You need to manually delete allocated buffers since they are not freed automatically. Glad you found the solution.
---
### Author:  [@Masamir\_Kahn](https://discuss.pynq.io/u/Masamir_Kahn)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 12:22am UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773/4 "2021-01-04T00:22:07Z")
@rock I tried dataset more than 10MB but it result:
```
RuntimeError Traceback (most recent call last)
in ()
1 input_buffer = xlnk.cma_array(shape=source_data.shape, dtype=np.int32)
2 input_buffer[:] = source_data
----> 3 output_buffer = xlnk.cma_array(shape=source_data.shape, dtype=np.int32)
/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/pynq/xlnk.py in cma_array(self, shape, dtype, cacheable, pointer, cache)
286 length = elements * dtype.itemsize
287 if pointer is None:
--> 288 raw_pointer = self.cma_alloc(length, cacheable=cacheable)
289 pointer = self.ffi.gc(raw_pointer, self.cma_free, size=length)
290 buffer = self.cma_get_buffer(pointer, length)
/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/pynq/xlnk.py in cma_alloc(self, length, cacheable, data_type)
220 buf = self.libxlnk.cma_alloc(length, cacheable)
221 if buf == self.ffi.NULL:
--> 222 raise RuntimeError("Failed to allocate Memory!")
223 self.bufmap[buf] = length
224 return self.ffi.cast(data_type + "*", buf)
RuntimeError: Failed to allocate Memory!
```
what should I do?
---
### Author:  [@rock](https://discuss.pynq.io/u/rock)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2021, 6:24am UTC](https://discuss.pynq.io/t/runtimeerror-failed-to-allocate-memory/1773/5 "2021-01-29T06:24:33Z")
I guess you just need to be cautious that you can exceed the memory limit. On PynqZ2 I remember it is around a few hundreds MB. So you need to constantly free the memory after using it. If you ever come to that situation above, you can try to xlnk\_reset to free all contiguous memory and try again.