Sample data for Magento 2 - PHP memory problem while installing from Composer

Question

Recently I tried to install Magento 2 with sample data and failed. I added the proper package to the composer.json file and when I run composer update it always fails just before finishing downloading:

  - Installing magento/sample-data-media (0.42.0-beta1)
    Downloading: 90%
Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 652738560) (tried to allocate 556269568 by
tes) in phar://C:/ProgramData/ComposerSetup/bin/composer.phar/src/Composer/Util/
RemoteFilesystem.php on line 175

I set memory_limit in my php.ini file to 2048MB but it didn't help. I checked in command line that it is set correctly:

c:\WT-NMP\WWW\magento_2>php -r "echo ini_get('memory_limit');"
2048M
c:\WT-NMP\WWW\magento_2>php -r "$a = []; while(true) { $a[] = 'a'; }"

Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 2019033088) (tried to allocate 24 bytes) i
n Command line code on line 1

Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or maybe you know some hacky way to install sample data without Composer?

Answer 1

We apologize for the issues. There have been recent problems with sample data that are now resolved.

We just published updates to the procedure. There are two ways to do it:

Install sample data before installing Magento: http://bit.ly/1FIHnVO

Install sample data after installing Magento: http://bit.ly/1HSALaY

Please let us know if you have questions or issues.

Answer 2

I get the same issue. Plus, the download via composer of the sample data takes 2 eternities until it crashes.
Here is what I did.
Download the sample data from here and unzip what you donwload in dev/tools/Magento/Tools/SampleData/.
Then download the media images for the sample data from here and unzip what you download to pub/media.
Then, when installing Magento 2, the "Install sample data" checkbox will be enabled.
But be patient. Installing the sample data will take a while.

Answer 3

Update your memory_limit! If this setting is too low then you’ll get some unusual problems with your install like freezing at 2% or 96% with no error messages. You can change this globally in WHM or just add the following line to the very top of

public_html or htdocs/index.php:

ini_set(“memory_limit”,”2048M”);

Also set this same line at the top of dev/tools/Magento/Tools/SampleData/install.php

ini_set(“memory_limit”,”2048M”);

I actually set mine to 4096M to be safe.

Answer 4

Try to set inline memory limit in the command:

Infinite Memory Limit

php -d memory_limit=-1 bin/magento sampledata:deploy

Setting memory limit 4GB

php -d memory_limit=4G bin/magento sampledata:deploy