Error <jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size with Raspberry Pi 5 !!!

Author: denis99999Created Oct 18, 2024Updated Jun 25, 2025

Hi,

I use a Raspberry Pi 5 8Gb RAM (Raspberry Pi OS Lite bookworm 64 bit) and the docker image "64 bit version of rethinkdb for ARM architecture":

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                   IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
arm64v8/rethinkdb   2.4.3                 b98b2fcbce6c   10 months ago   146MB
arm64v8/rethinkdb   2.4.4-bookworm-slim   b98b2fcbce6c   10 months ago   146MB
arm64v8/rethinkdb   2.4.2                 84dd82db0759   11 months ago   113MB
hello-world         latest                ee301c921b8a   17 months ago   9.14kB
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# dpkg --print-architecture
arm64
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# getconf LONG_BIT
64
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# lscpu
Architecture:             aarch64
  CPU op-mode(s):         32-bit, 64-bit
  Byte Order:             Little Endian
CPU(s):                   4
  On-line CPU(s) list:    0-3
Vendor ID:                ARM
  Model name:             Cortex-A76
    Model:                1
    Thread(s) per core:   1
    Core(s) per cluster:  4
    Socket(s):            -
    Cluster(s):           1
    Stepping:             r4p1
    CPU(s) scaling MHz:   62%
    CPU max MHz:          2400.0000
    CPU min MHz:          1500.0000
    BogoMIPS:             108.00
    Flags:                fp asimd evtstrm aes pmull sha1 sha2 crc32 atomics fphp asimdhp cpuid asimdrdm lrcpc dcpop asimddp
Caches (sum of all):
  L1d:                    256 KiB (4 instances)
  L1i:                    256 KiB (4 instances)
  L2:                     2 MiB (4 instances)
  L3:                     2 MiB (1 instance)
Vulnerabilities:
  Gather data sampling:   Not affected
  Itlb multihit:          Not affected
  L1tf:                   Not affected
  Mds:                    Not affected
  Meltdown:               Not affected
  Mmio stale data:        Not affected
  Reg file data sampling: Not affected
  Retbleed:               Not affected
  Spec rstack overflow:   Not affected
  Spec store bypass:      Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Spectre v1:             Mitigation; __user pointer sanitization
  Spectre v2:             Mitigation; CSV2, BHB
  Srbds:                  Not affected
  Tsx async abort:        Not affected
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 6.6.51+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.6.51-1+rpt3 (2024-10-08) aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# cat /etc/debian_version
12.7
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:        8244560 kB
MemFree:         6524752 kB
MemAvailable:    7948304 kB
Buffers:           60352 kB
Cached:          1391424 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:           211072 kB
Inactive:        1336176 kB
Active(anon):     101280 kB
Inactive(anon):        0 kB
Active(file):     109792 kB
Inactive(file):  1336176 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
SwapTotal:        204784 kB
SwapFree:         204784 kB
Zswap:                 0 kB
Zswapped:              0 kB
Dirty:                 0 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:         95680 kB
Mapped:           122560 kB
Shmem:              5680 kB
KReclaimable:      76784 kB
Slab:             110416 kB
SReclaimable:      76784 kB
SUnreclaim:        33632 kB
KernelStack:        2992 kB
PageTables:         4752 kB
SecPageTables:         0 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     4327056 kB
Committed_AS:     557296 kB
VmallocTotal:   68180246528 kB
VmallocUsed:       16912 kB
VmallocChunk:          0 kB
Percpu:             1280 kB
CmaTotal:         327680 kB
CmaFree:          311200 kB
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi#

When I try to launch rethinkdb I meet the following error:

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# docker run b98b2fcbce6c
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
...
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
Error in GnuTLS initialization: ASN1 parser: Element was not found.
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
<jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size
terminate called without an active exception
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# getconf PAGESIZE
16384

I tried different versions of rethinkdb and it did not change anything. What I understood looking on the internet is this issue was caused by the fact the the OS for Pi5 uses 16k for PAGESIZE by default, which isn’t supported by the jemalloc version shipped by some applications, is it the case for rethinkdb ? Preferably, can you provide a new version to fix this issue ? Or is it exists a workaround at rethinkdb level ? For example, an environment variable to disable jemalloc ? Note it works fine using Raspberry Pi 4 with the same OS, so it is an issue specific to Raspberry Pi 5 hardware, it is because Pi 4 uses 4k for PAGESIZE. Waiting for your response, I found a work around at Raspberry Pi OS level by changing the default PAGESIZE to 4k, it consists to add at the beginning of the "/boot/firmware/config.txt" file the instruction "kernel=kernel8.img" and then reboot, it is explained here, after what it works well. Many thanks.

Source: rethinkdb/rethinkdb

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