Eclipse crashes with "Unable to create new native thread" - any ideas? (my settings and info inside)

Question

I'm having trouble with Eclipse routinely crapping out on me (and being generally sluggish) and I was wondering if anyone could give me any insight. The message that gets thrown is "Unable to create new native thread." at which point I'm prompted to restart Eclipse. This happens 5 or so times a day.

I'm using Ecliipse Helios Service Release 2 (with Flash Builder plugin) on:

Windows Vista Business
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.20 GHz
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
System Type: 32-bit Operating System

My eclipse.ini settings which were stolen from this thread: What are the best jvm settings for eclipse:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.1.R36x_v20101122_1400.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.2.R36x_v20101222
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
-vm
C:/jdk1.6.0_25/jre/bin/client/jvm.dll
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.6
-Declipse.p2.unsignedPolicy=allow
-Xmn256m
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
-Xss4m
-XX:PermSize=256m
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-XX:CompileThreshold=5
-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=10
-XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=70
-XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing
-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions
-XX:+UseG1GC
-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote

Thanks for any help!

edit:

@normalocity - the error literally just happened (Unhandled event loop exception), this is after adjusting my eclipse.ini (I changed Xss to 1m, MaxPermSize to 384m, Xms to 512). Here is the additional info you asked for, exception stack trace:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread
at java.lang.Thread.start0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Thread.start(Thread.java:640)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$AutoAssistListener.start(ContentAssistant.java:263)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$AutoAssistListener.keyPressed(ContentAssistant.java:345)
at com.adobe.flexide.editorcore.contentassist.FlexContentAssistant$FlexAutoAssistListener.keyPressed(FlexContentAssistant.java:47)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.contentassist.ContentAssistant$InternalListener.verifyKey(ContentAssistant.java:811)
at org.eclipse.jface.text.TextViewer$VerifyKeyListenersManager.verifyKey(TextViewer.java:489)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledTextListener.handleEvent(StyledTextListener.java:65)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:84)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1053)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1077)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1062)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.notifyListeners(Widget.java:774)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText.handleKeyDown(StyledText.java:5957)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText$7.handleEvent(StyledText.java:5656)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:84)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1053)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1077)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1062)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendKeyEvent(Widget.java:1103)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendKeyEvent(Widget.java:1099)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.wmChar(Widget.java:1508)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Control.WM_CHAR(Control.java:4270)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Canvas.WM_CHAR(Canvas.java:345)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Control.windowProc(Control.java:4162)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Canvas.windowProc(Canvas.java:341)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.windowProc(Display.java:4873)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.win32.OS.DispatchMessageW(Native Method)
at org.eclipse.swt.internal.win32.OS.DispatchMessage(OS.java:2459)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:3655)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runEventLoop(Workbench.java:2640)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runUI(Workbench.java:2604)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.access$4(Workbench.java:2438)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench$7.run(Workbench.java:671)
at org.eclipse.core.databinding.observable.Realm.runWithDefault(Realm.java:332)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:664)
at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:149)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.application.IDEApplication.start(IDEApplication.java:115)
at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.app.EclipseAppHandle.run(EclipseAppHandle.java:196)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(EclipseAppLauncher.java:110)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:79)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:369)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:179)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:620)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:575)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1408)

Answer 1

It appears that there is not enough memory for new thread stack. On Windows, process space is 2GB. For heap you initially allocate 1Gb (-Xms option), so it's locked from the beginning. Minus 256Mb for classes (PermSize), minus JVM overhead which could be as much as 0.5Gb. So as a result, your threads have only about 256Mb for stacks, which is maximum 64 threads (256/4m).

Solution: Try to lower stack size to -Xss1024k or reduce initial heap size (-Xms).

Related reading about OutOfMemory: unable to create thread

As a side note, -XX:MaxPermSize=256m looks too small for Eclipse for EE. Better to set to 384.

Cheers, Max