Running Terraform Plan from the Command Line Fails with Out Of Memory

Problem

When you run terraform plan on a Windows system, the command fails with a fatal out of memory error. The error message in the command-line output is similar to the following.

runtime: out of memory: cannot allocate xxxxxxxxxx-byte block (xxxxxxxxxx in use)
fatal error: out of memory

goroutine 52 [running]:
runtime.throw({0x33ce057, 0xd})
      <directory>/1.21.8/x64/src/runtime/panic.go:1077 +0x4d fp=0xef06fc0 sp=0xef06fac pc=0x6bd52d
runtime.(*mcache).allocLarge(0x58f0778, 0x40000000, 0x1)
      <directory>/1.21.8/x64/src/runtime/mcache.go:236 +0x1c5 fp=0xef06fec sp=0xef06fc0 pc=0x698125
runtime.mallocgc(0x40000000, 0x0, 0x0)

Prerequisites

• A 64-bit Windows operating system.

Cause

This error typically occurs when there is an architecture mismatch between the Terraform binary and the operating system. Running a 32-bit Terraform binary on a 64-bit Windows OS can lead to memory allocation failures during the plan operation, as the 32-bit application cannot address a sufficient amount of memory.

Solution

To resolve this issue, you must use the Terraform binary that matches your operating system's architecture.

1. Navigate to the Terraform releases page.
2. Download the 64-bit version of the Terraform binary for Windows (e.g., terraform_<version>_windows_amd64.zip).
3. Replace your existing 32-bit terraform.exe with the 64-bit version.

Outcome

After replacing the binary, run the terraform plan command again. The command should now execute successfully without producing memory errors.