Hibernation failing due to insufficient memory

infraviolet · 2026-06-01 20:24:59

I've been recently running into an issue on my laptop where hibernation will fail with the error "PM: hibernation: Not enough free memory". This system, in its same configuration, used to consistently hibernate after 24 hours in sleep like it was supposed to, but recently has started throwing these errors. I'm not aware of any significant increase in the memory usage of my system, and I have plenty of free swap space (64 gigabytes, for 32 gigabytes of RAM, 4 of which are dedicated to the integrated GPU).

It's pretty consistent, but I have had occasional success hibernating. I have noticed that it tends to be more likely to succeed if I initiate the hibernation myself (e.g. by running systemctl hibernate), but that can still fail too, even on a fresh boot with very little RAM used. Has anyone else noticed an increase in failures like this? Is there something obvious I'm missing? Does anyone know how I can get it hibernating again?

For completeness' sake, here's the kernel logs from a failed hibernation attempt:

PM: hibernation: hibernation entry
Filesystems sync: 0.039 seconds
Freezing user space processes
Freezing user space processes completed (elapsed 0.002 seconds)
OOM killer disabled.
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x00000000-0x00000fff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x0009f000-0x000fffff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x09b00000-0x09dfffff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x09f00000-0x09f3bfff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x49b50000-0x4bd4ffff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x4bd69000-0x4bd6cfff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x4bd6f000-0x4bd6ffff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x52e13000-0x52e61fff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x54857000-0x54857fff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x57f7f000-0x5affefff]
PM: hibernation: Marking nosave pages: [mem 0x5b000000-0xffffffff]
PM: hibernation: Basic memory bitmaps created
PM: hibernation: Preallocating image memory
PM: hibernation: Allocated 2044280 pages for snapshot
PM: hibernation: Allocated 8177120 kbytes in 42.02 seconds (194.60 MB/s)
Freezing remaining freezable tasks
Freezing remaining freezable tasks completed (elapsed 0.002 seconds)
printk: Suspending console(s) (use no_console_suspend to debug)
queueing ieee80211 work while going to suspend
ACPI: EC: interrupt blocked
ACPI: PM: Preparing to enter system sleep state S4
ACPI: EC: event blocked
ACPI: EC: EC stopped
ACPI: PM: Saving platform NVS memory
Disabling non-boot CPUs ...
smpboot: CPU 15 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 14 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 13 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 12 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 11 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 10 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 9 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 8 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 7 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 6 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 5 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 4 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 3 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 2 is now offline
smpboot: CPU 1 is now offline
Spectre V2 : Update user space SMT mitigation: STIBP off
PM: hibernation: Creating image:
PM: hibernation: Need to copy 4317283 pages
PM: hibernation: Normal pages needed: 4317283 + 1024, available pages: 2971550
PM: hibernation: Not enough free memory
PM: hibernation: Error -12 creating image

Thank you!

seth · 2026-06-01 21:05:48

PM: hibernation: Normal pages needed: 4317283 + 1024, available pages: 2971550

You need ~17.27 GB but only have 11.88 GB free swap - what's the output of "cat /proc/meminfo" before failing to hibernate?
Do you manually specify the resume target?

Interestingly enough though

PM: hibernation: Allocated 2044280 pages for snapshot

So you're adding ~9GB to that - VRAM preservation?

In doubt please post your complete system journal for the boot:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -s -H "Accept: application/json, */*" --upload-file - 'https://paste.c-net.org/'

Arch Linux

#1 2026-06-01 20:24:59

Hibernation failing due to insufficient memory

#2 2026-06-01 21:05:48

Re: Hibernation failing due to insufficient memory

Board footer