# Metaphlan4\_Broken pipe error

**URL:** <https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896>\
**Category:** MetaPhlAn\
**Created:** [March 1, 2023, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896 "2023-03-01T19:31:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shreya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@shreya](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/shreya)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2023, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896/1 "2023-03-01T19:31:53Z")

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while running MetaPhlan 4 , I am getting the following error. I have about 200 gb space in my computer…if it is a memory issue.

bowtie2-align exited with value 137  
Traceback (most recent call last):  
File “/home/poppy/miniconda3/envs/mpa/bin/read\_fastx.py”, line 10, in  
sys.exit(main())  
File “/home/poppy/miniconda3/envs/mpa/lib/python3.7/site-packages/metaphlan/utils/read\_fastx.py”, line 168, in main  
f\_nreads, f\_avg\_read\_length = read\_and\_write\_raw(f, opened=False, min\_len=min\_len, prefix\_id=prefix\_id)  
File “/home/poppy/miniconda3/envs/mpa/lib/python3.7/site-packages/metaphlan/utils/read\_fastx.py”, line 130, in read\_and\_write\_raw  
nreads, avg\_read\_length = read\_and\_write\_raw\_int(inf, min\_len=min\_len, prefix\_id=prefix\_id)  
File “/home/poppy/miniconda3/envs/mpa/lib/python3.7/site-packages/metaphlan/utils/read\_fastx.py”, line 109, in read\_and\_write\_raw\_int  
print\_record(description + “\_\_{}{}{}”.format(prefix\_id, ‘.’ if prefix\_id else ‘’, idx), sequence, qual, fmt))  
BrokenPipeError: [Errno 32] Broken pipe

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**Author:** ![aitor.blancomiguez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/aitor.blancomiguez/32/86_2.png) [@aitor.blancomiguez](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/aitor.blancomiguez)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2023, 9:41am UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896/2 "2023-03-02T09:41:17Z")

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Hi @shreya  
It seems more a problem of RAM than storage space. How much ram is available in your machine for running metaphlan 4 ?

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**Author:** ![ArianaU](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/arianau/32/2112_2.png) [@ArianaU](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/ArianaU)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 6:45pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896/3 "2023-04-24T18:45:14Z")

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Hello @aitor.blancomiguez, I see the same error message but the HPC I have access to has 35 gb of RAM.

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**Author:** ![ArianaU](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/arianau/32/2112_2.png) [@ArianaU](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/ArianaU)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 4:19pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/metaphlan4-broken-pipe-error/4896/4 "2023-04-26T16:19:00Z")

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While I have access to at least 35Gb of RAM the pod I am using in a HPC resource limited me to only accessing 4Gb of RAM. Once I increased the limits I no longer experienced the error.