Why does the JVM crash with a core dump or a Dr.Watson error?

Any problem in pure Java code throws a Java exception or error. Java exceptions or errors will not cause a core dump (on UNIX systems) or a Dr.Watson error (on WIN32systems). Any serious Java problem will result in an OutOfMemoryError thrown by the JVM with the stack trace and consequently JVM will exit. These Java stack traces are very useful for identifying the cause for an abnormal exit of the JVM. So is there a way to know that OutOfMemoryError is about to occur? The Java JDK 1.5 has a package called java.lang.management which has useful JMX beans that we can use to manage the JVM. One of these beans is the MemoryMXBean.

An OutOfMemoryError can be thrown due to one of the following 4 reasons:
􀂃 JVM may have a memory leak due to a bug in its internal heap management implementation. But this is highly unlikely because JVMs are well tested for this.
􀂃 The application may not have enough heap memory allocated for its running. You can allocate more JVM
heap size (with –Xmx parameter to the JVM) or decrease the amount of memory your application takes to
overcome this. To increase the heap space:

Java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M

Care should be taken not to make the –Xmx value too large because it can slow down your application. The
secret is to make the maximum heap size value the right size.
􀂃 Another not so prevalent cause is the running out of a memory area called the “perm” which sits next to the heap. All the binary code of currently running classes is archived in the “perm” area. The ‘perm’ area is
important if your application or any of the third party jar files you use dynamically generate classes. For
example: “perm” space is consumed when XSLT templates are dynamically compiled into classes, J2EE
application servers, JasperReports, JAXB etc use Java reflection to dynamically generate classes and/or
large amount of classes in your application. To increase perm space:
Java -XX:PermSize=256M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M
􀂃 The fourth and the most common reason is that you may have a memory leak in your application