DataSource.Error: MySQL: Out of memory; check if mysqld or some other process uses all available

[Sai_Akash]

Hi BI Team,

I’m encountering an "Out of Memory" error when trying to connect Power BI to my MySQL database hosted on AWS RDS. The error message suggests checking if mysqld or another process is using all available memory, and mentions using 'ulimit' or adding more swap space. Has anyone faced this issue before? If so, what steps did you take to resolve it? Any advice on adjusting memory settings in either Power BI or MySQL would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Sai Akash

[rajendraongole1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sai_Akash  - Yes, this "Out of Memory" error in MySQL on AWS RDS while connecting with Power BI is a common issue, especially if your RDS instance has limited memory or if queries are too large

Run the following query in MySQL Workbench or any MySQL client to check current memory

SELECT
variable_name, variable_value
FROM
performance_schema.global_status
WHERE
variable_name IN ('Threads_connected', 'Threads_running', 'Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_free', 'Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_total');

check active processes consuming memory

SHOW PROCESSLIST;

If memory is still insufficient:

Upgrade to a larger RDS instance (e.g., from db.t3.micro → db.t3.medium).
Enable Auto-scaling if necessary.

try the above steps hope this helps.