"java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space" in Maven build

I'm getting this error while building Maven project, I increased MAVEN_OPTS but all the same, I found some similar posts but they are refering to something else. How do I fix this?

The system is out of resources.
Consult the following stack trace for details.
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:632)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
        at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
        at org.codehaus.plexus.compiler.javac.IsolatedClassLoader.loadClass(IsolatedClassLoader.java:56)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Annotate.<init>(Annotate.java:52)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Annotate.instance(Annotate.java:36)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.<init>(ClassReader.java:215)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader.instance(ClassReader.java:168)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.JavaCompiler.<init>(JavaCompiler.java:293)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.JavaCompiler.instance(JavaCompiler.java:72)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:340)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:279)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:270)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.Main.compile(Main.java:87)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
        at org.codehaus.plexus.compiler.javac.JavacCompiler.compileInProcess(JavacCompiler.java:420)
        at org.codehaus.plexus.compiler.javac.JavacCompiler.compile(JavacCompiler.java:141)
        at org.apache.maven.plugin.AbstractCompilerMojo.execute(AbstractCompilerMojo.java:493)
        at org.apache.maven.plugin.CompilerMojo.execute(CompilerMojo.java:114)
        at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:490)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:694)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalWithLifecycle(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:556)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:535)

I'm not as worried about how to fix as to how to fix it in the maven ecosystem

When you say you increased MAVEN_OPTS, what values did you increase? Did you increase the MaxPermSize, as in example:

export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m"

(or on Windows:)

set MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m

You can also specify these JVM options in each maven project separately.

If you want to make this part of your POM for a repeatable build, you can use the fork-variant of a few of the plugins (especially compiler:compile and surefire:test):

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.2</version>
    <configuration>
      <fork>true</fork>
      <meminitial>128m</meminitial>
      <maxmem>1024m</maxmem>
      <compilerArgs>
        <arg>-XX:MaxPermSize=256m</arg>
      </compilerArgs>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.18</version>
    <configuration>
        <forkCount>1</forkCount>
        <argLine>-Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m</argLine>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Increase the size of your perm space, of course. Use the -XX:MaxPermSize=128m option. Set the value to something appropriate.

When I encountered this exception, I solved this by using Run Configurations... panel as picture shows below.Especially, at JRE tab, the VM Arguments are the critical
( "-Xmx1024m -Xms512m -XX:MaxPermSize=1024m -XX:PermSize=512m" ).

This very annoying error so what I did: Under Windows:

Edit system environment variables - > Edit Variables -> New

then fill

MAVEN_OPTS
-Xms512m -Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m

Then restart the console and run the maven build again. No more Maven space/perm size problems.

I have found a solution of git bash command when you try to build war using git mvn clean install for “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space” in Maven build error come

use below command first 

$ export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx512m -Xss32m"

then use your mvn command to clean install /build war file

$ mvn clean install

NOTE: you don't need -XX:MaxPermSize argument in MAVEN_OPTS when your are using jdk1.8
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM warning: ignoring option MaxPermSize=XXXm; support was removed in 8.0

We face this error when permanent generation heap is full and some of us we use command prompt to build our maven project in windows. since we need to increase heap size, we could set our environment variable @ControlPanel/System and Security/System and there you click on Change setting and select Advanced and set Environment variable as below

• Variable-name : MAVEN_OPTS
• Variable-value : -XX:MaxPermSize=128m