Knowledge Base

By default, the PaperCut Application Server is restricted to a maximum RAM allocation of up to one quarter (1/4) of physical memory. This ensures that PaperCut does not consume too many resources and “plays nicely” with other applications that may be run on the same system.

If the server is dedicated to running PaperCut then you may choose increase the amount of memory made available to PaperCut. This can improve application performance, particularly on sites with many users or with large printing volumes. Increased RAM allocation helps PaperCut by allowing it to perform optimizations such as disk and data caching. Being a database driven application, PaperCut can benefit greatly.

Increasing maximum memory (Windows/Linux/Novell)

Before making this change it is recommended to contact the technical support team to discuss available options.

To increase amount of memory available to PaperCut.

1. Create a text file in the directory: [app-path]\server\custom\ directory called service.conf.

2. Open the file in a text editor and add the following line to make PaperCut use up to one third of physical RAM:

wrapper.java.additional.6=-XX:DefaultMaxRAMFraction=3

3. Save the text file

4. Restart the PaperCut Application Server service (On Windows do this in Control Panel→Admin Tools→Services).

5. After the service is restarted the server log file ([app-path]\server\logs\server.log) will show the new “max memory” setting.

Increasing maximum memory (Apple Mac)

Before making this change it is recommended to contact the technical support team to discuss available options.

NOTE: This only works on PaperCut 9.6 and higher.

To increase amount of memory available to PaperCut on the Mac.

1. Create a text file in the directory: [app-path]\server\custom\ directory called launch-app-server.conf. Change the file permissions to make the file readable to all users (or at least the papercut user).

2. Open the file in a text editor and add the following line to make PaperCut use up to 256MB of physical RAM:

PC_CUSTOM_SERVER_ARG=-Xmx256m

3. Save the text file

4. Restart the PaperCut Application Server service (By running stop-server.command and then start-server.command scripts located in [app-path]/server/bin/mac/).

5. After the service is restarted the server log file ([app-path]/server/logs/server.log) will show the new “max memory” setting.

Running out of memory or High CPU usage

If PaperCut runs out of memory an OutOfMemoryError will be displayed to the user and/or logged to the service.log file. You may also see GC overhead limit exceeded which is again an indication of running out of memory.

Another indication of running out of memory is very high CPU usage for extended periods of time, by the pc-app process/service as the service tries to rearrange RAM for various tasks.

If this occurs then this is an indication that the server requires more memory, and there are two possible solutions:

• Add more RAM to the server. We recommend at least 2GB of RAM for busy servers. Our larger customers run around 4Gb of RAM.
• Increase the maximum amount of memory available to PaperCut (see above). This should only be done if there are not other applications running on the server or if recommended by the support team.

See also

• PaperCut on 64-bit (x64) platforms

Categories: Implementation / Deployment, Administration, Architecture

Keywords: memory usage, memory fraction, high cpu utilisation, increase memory pool

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