OOMKilled Kubernetes Origin: Platform & cloud Last updated 14 Oct 2026

Kubernetes: OOMKilled (exit code 137)

The container used more memory than its limit, and the kernel killed it.

Exact message you may see exit code 137Out of memory: Killed process
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Seen on: Kubernetes Docker Node.js

Meaning

Memory limits are hard caps. When exceeded, the container is killed immediately (exit 137) — no graceful shutdown, often without application logs.

Common causes

  • Memory limit too low for the workload
  • Memory leak
  • Runtime not container-aware (old JVMs, Node default heap)
  • Spikes from large requests/batch jobs

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Confirm: kubectl describe pod → Last State: OOMKilled
  2. Raise resources.limits.memory after measuring real usage (kubectl top pod)
  3. Make runtimes respect limits (-XX:MaxRAMPercentage, --max-old-space-size)

Detailed fix by platform

Kubernetes

  1. Resources:
    yaml
    resources:
  requests: { memory: "256Mi", cpu: "100m" }
  limits:   { memory: "512Mi" }

Node.js

  1. NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=384 for a 512Mi limit.

How to diagnose

  1. Reason — OOMKilled in Last State?
  2. Usage — Actual memory over time?
  3. Runtime — Heap sized to the limit?

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Platform & cloud. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

0xC0000005 — The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000005) / Exception code 0xc0000005 access violation (Windows)0xC0000005Allowed memory size exhausted — PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted (PHP)Allowed memory size e…BackoffLimitExceeded — Job has reached the specified backoff limit (BackoffLimitExceeded) (Kubernetes)BackoffLimitExceededCannot allocate memory — fork: Cannot allocate memory / ENOMEM (Linux)Cannot allocate memoryContainer memory limit exceeded — Cloud Run: Memory limit of 512 MiB exceeded with 530 MiB used. Consider increasing the memory limit (Google Cloud / Firebase)Container memory limi…CrashLoopBackOff — Kubernetes: CrashLoopBackOff (Kubernetes)CrashLoopBackOffdouble free or corruption — C/C++: free(): double free detected / double free or corruption (out) — Aborted (core dumped) (C/C++)double free or corrup…ELIFECYCLE — npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE / Command failed with exit code 1 (npm)ELIFECYCLEOOMKilled

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