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Java VisualVM missing features

I have a Java application, and I'd like to monitor it using Java VisualVM (jvisualvm).
However, in the VisualVM window very little data can be seen. Also, I can't take a heap dump.
Here is a screenshot of what it looks like, with another test app I wrote:
I can monitor memory usage, classes loaded and threads. Heap dumps, performing GC as well as sampling is disabled.
I have tried adding -Dcom.sun.management.jxmremote to VM arguments, as described here. This is showing up in the Installation Details window. However, it does not appear in the Java process arguments. (should it?)
I also tried to click the button in my test app until an OutOfMemoryError occurred. No heap dump; that is not weird as Heap Dump on OOME is disabled.
What could I do to solve this?

I had this problem because I was running JVisualVM from a different JRE/JDK installation than the target process. It seems that the two must be coming from the same place or it grays out the Heap Dump button.

It seems there was a problem with different Java versions.
A long story short: If JDK is outdated re-install it, and delete Java executables from C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64.
Firstly, I want to tell you that I have multiple versions of Java on my computer. My JDK is 32-bit because of some drivers not running with 64-bit Java. Also, I have both 32-bit and 64-bit JRE installed, the latter for better performance for Java games.
My JDK was version 7, update 40. The VisualVM was so also that version. However, my JRE with auto updates was version 7, update 45.
java -version told me it was version 45 (which it was), so I didn't think the problem was there.
Then, I checked the versions via Control Panel. I now knew my JDK was outdated, so I uninstalled it and redownloaded it.
Uninstalling removed Java from the system path, so jvisualvm wouldn't run. I added it to the path. Now both the app and VisualVM ran normally, but still the problem persisted.
The final problem was that the system was using the java.exe from C:\Windows\System32 instead of the JDK one. By the date it seemed to be the latest one, but maybe it was that the JRE was installed in a different location that the VisualVM (= the JDK).
Finally, I just deleted the Java executables in both C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64.

Why isn't VisualVM showing all the normal tabs?

Usually I see all these tabs in VisualVM for locally running Java programs:
However, I have one local program which is currently only showing me Overview and Monitor (even though it usually shows all those shown above):
Also interesting is that VisualVM itself doesn't present the Profile tab:
All three of the programs shown are running with the same JVM with the same Java Home.
What controls which tabs are shown for a particular program? How can I get them all back for my program showing just Overview and Monitor?
I have Visual VM 1.3.5 (latest at this date) and JDK 1.7.0_17.

I found that this was the issue of usage of wrong JDK version. In my case my application was running on 64bit JDK and I started VisualVM from 32bit JDK.
After starting VisualVM from the same JDK on which my application is running, everything was fine. Hope it will help you.

You might need to enable jmx ports on your app. Try adding these switches to your VM and see if the tabs appear again:
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=6789 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false

I've just removed ~/.visualvm and reran, See https://java.net/jira/browse/VISUALVM-598

As most of the people mentioned,
The issue was due to the version mismatch of virtualvm and your application.
additionally,
visualvm is bundled in oracle which supports jdk up to 9.
If you are using >9, please make sure you go for another profiler.

What worked for me was specifying the "Start profiling from" classes. If I left this blank, I didn't get the profiler tab. When I specified it, I did. I should probably note that this was a web application running under Tomcat, so I specified org.apache.catalina.startup.** as the starting class.

Check that proxy is disabled if you are running VisualVM for local application

I had a similar problem with missing profiler tab in VisualVM. I'm using Oracle JDK 1.8 and want to profile web application running on Tomcat 8 (JPA, Spring, Hibernate, Vaadin, etc).
I tried all above-mentioned solutions and many others found on the internet, but unfortunately, none of them solved missing profiler tab issue.
So I switched to Java Mission Control profiling tool (JMC + Flight Recorder) which is a part of standard Oracle JDK (from JDK 1.7 update 40) and it works great.

In my case, the issue was the usage of wrong JDK version. My App was running on jdk1.7.0_80, VisualVm running with jdk1.8.0_162.
Replacing the APP JDK version from 1.7.0_79 to 1.7.0_80 fixes the problem.

“Error occurred during initialization of VM; Could not reserve enough space for object heap” using -Xmx3G

First of all, I have a box with 8gb of ram, so I doubt total memory is the issue.
This application is running fine on machines with 6gb or less.
I am trying to reserve 3GB of space using -Xmx3G under "VM Arguments" in Run Configurations in Eclipse.
Every time I try to reserve more than 1500mb, I get this error:
“Error occurred during initialization of VM; Could not reserve enough space for object heap” using -Xmx3G
What is going on here?

Could it be that you're using a 32-bit jvm on that machine?

Here is how to fix it:
Go to Start->Control Panel->System->Advanced(tab)->Environment Variables->System
Variables->New:
Variable name: _JAVA_OPTIONS
Variable value: -Xmx512M
Variable name: Path
Variable value: ;C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin;F:\JDK\bin;
Change this to your appropriate path.

This is actually not an Eclipse-specific issue; it's a general
Java-on-Windows issue. It's because of how the JVM allocates memory on
Windows; it insists on allocating a contiguous chunk of memory, which
often Windows can't provide, even if there are enough separate chunks to
satisfy the allocation request.
There are utilities that will try to help Windows "defrag" its memory,
which would, in theory, help this situation; but I've not really tried
them in earnest so can't speak to their effectiveness.
One thing that I've heard sometimes that might help is to reboot Windows
and, before starting any other apps, launch the Java app that needs the
big chunk of memory. If you're lucky, Windows won't have fragmented its
memory space yet and Java will get the contiguous block that is asks for.
Somewhere out on the interwebs there are more technical explanations and
analyses of this issue, but I don't have any references handy.
I did find this, though, which looks helpful: https://stackoverflow.com/a/497757/639520

First the JRE of 32bits can't use more ~1.5Gb of ram. So if you want more, use a 64bits JRE.
Second, When a new JVM starts, this sum the -Xmx property of the all JVM that are running, and check if there is enough memory left on the system to run at their own -Xmx, if is not enough then the error occurs.

I was using Liferay with Tomcat server from eclipse IDE.
I was stuck with this same error on click on server start up.
Double click on server from eclipse.
it open up Server Overview page. Updated memory arguments from -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m to -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m.
Then it was working for me.

Make sure that Eclipse is actually running the same JVM you think it's running. If you use java in your web browser ever, you likely have a 32-bit version floating around too that might be taking precedence if it installed or updated lately.
To be absolutely sure, I recommend adding these two lines to your eclipse.ini file at the top:
-vm
C:/Java/jdk1.6.0_27/bin
...where on my machine C:/Java/jdk1.6.0_27/bin where the JVM I know is 64-bit is located. Be sure to have the bin folder there.
(As a bonus, on Windows 7, this also allows you to actually "pin the tab" which is why I had to do this for my own usage)

This is the issue of Heap size. Edit your .bat (Batch file). It might be showing Heap size 1024. Change it to 512 Then it should work.

Just put # symbol in front of org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx1536m in gradle.properties
# org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx1536m

I also had the same problem while using Eclipse which was 32 bit and the JVM used by it was 64 bit.
When I routed the Eclipse to 32 bit JVM then it worked

I know that i am a bit late, but here my answer comes:
I just installed the Java online Version from Oracle(not the offline 64-Bit one).
After having added the JAVA_HOME ENV variable, it just worked!
Hope I could help :)

Probably you are trying wrong options anyways.
I got a similar error with supporting error log:
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM warning: ignoring option PermSize=32M; support was removed in 8.0
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM warning: ignoring option MaxPermSize=128M; support was removed in 8.0
Im my case, the software did not support java 8 yet(script was using old JVM arguments) but I had had java 8 by default.

One of the reason for this issue is no memory available for Tomcat to start. Try to delete the unwanted running software from windows and restart the eclipse and tomcat.

Solution is simple. No need to go deep into this issue.
If you are running on 64bit machine then follow below steps:
Unistall 32 bit java first (check in C:\Program Files (x86) for its existence)
Install the newer version JDK kit 64 bit (includes JRE)
Set the environment path (To avoid conflict error if you have two different 64bit JRE)
Check in command prompt by typing javac command.
Restart / Done
You can have two different Java installed but don't forgot to set path.

Please set JAVA_OPTS=-Xms256m -Xmx512m in environment variables, it should solve the issue, it worked for me.

Find out if you are using a 32bit version or 64bit version of Java. To know that use the command
java -version
The 3rd line of the output should give you if it 32bit or 64bit.
If it is 32bit uninstall and install a 64bit version.

Known Tomcat 6.0 and JDK 1.7.0_02 issues?

Are there known Tomcat 6.0 and JDK 1.7.0_02 issues?
I know this is a hard question to answer, if the answer is no. But I need to ask just in case the answer is yes. Also I will accept any solutions to the issues below as answers. Please just share whatever issues you have had, and I will update this question if need be.
Issues:
Some issues I have run into since upgrading from JDK 1.7.0 to 1.7.0_02 (which I did to avoid the Eclipse's help menus from crashing, due to a Java 1.7.0 bug.):
Tomcat server takes much longer to start, I need a 120 second timeout to handle it.
FATAL ERROR in native method: JDWP No transports initialized, jvmtiError=AGENT_ERROR_TRANSPORT_INIT(197) error, which disappeared the next day and then reappeared the third day, with no changes other than reloading Eclipse.
Tomcat server takes much longer to shut down. I need a 60 second timeout to handle it, from 15 second default.
Eclipse itself appears to crawl to a halt (figuratively speaking) upon building the workspace and validating the project at hand. Everything within Eclipse appears to take longer, even opening an unopened file.
Everything seems suspicious.
P.S. JDK 1.7.0_02 is also known as 1.7.0u2, Java SE 7u2, Java SE 7 Update 2, etc.
Versions:
JDK = Oracle, 64-bit, downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html. Exact file downloaded and installed was jdk-7u2-windows-x64.exe.
Tomcat = Tomcat 6.0.33, downloaded separately from Eclipse
Eclipse = Eclipse Java EE IDE for Web Developers., Version: Indigo Release, Eclipse Platform, Version: 3.7.0.v20110530-9gF7UHNFFt4cwE-pkZDJ7oz-mj4OSEIlu9SEv0f, Build id: I20110613-1736.
64-bit Windows 7 machine, 8GB RAM, Intel Core i7-2600 CPU # 3.4GHz (4 cores)
Eclipse, Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, are all on the same (development) computer.
EDIT: Added system specs above.

When running 64 bits Java with default options (references compaction is off by default), it requires almost twice the amount of memory than with 32 bits.
For Eclipse, open the eclipse.ini file and double/increase a lot the -Xmx option.
Of course, your physical memory may not be enough when running some JVMs.
So I recommend you to test the -XX:+UseCompressedOops HotSpot option with 64 bits JVM and monitor memory usage thanks to jconsole for instance. You can also read details about that recent option. That option
For Tomcat, create the file bin/setenv.bat with content:
set JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx1024M -XX:+UseCompressedOops"

Well, perhaps it's all about the new JVM released in that update. It alledgedly improves performance but... well, who knows. JDT on Tomcat6 interacts with JDK 1.7 so unexpected things could happen.
Other than that, there're few things to check.

VisualVM unable to sampler memory

I have a tomcat instance with the JMXRemote parameter configured. The local VisualVM is able to get a sampler on CPU, however, not for Memory. The memory button is grayed out with a summary saying: "Memory sampling: Not available. Cannot connect to target application. Make sure the application is running on a supported JDK 6 or JDK 7"
JMXRemote parameter:
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9086
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
Tomcat JDK version:
JDK1.6.0.30
VisualVM version:
Version: 1.6.0_30 (Build 1320-110325); platform 110131-9c8b3bfb3a1e
System: Windows Server 2008 R2 (6.1) , amd64 64bit
Java: 1.6.0_30; Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (20.5-b03, mixed mode)
Vendor: Sun Microsystems Inc., http://java.sun.com/
Environment: Cp1252; en_US (visualvm)
Userdir: C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\.visualvm\7
Clusters: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_30\lib\visualvm\platform
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_30\lib\visualvm\visualvm
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_30\lib\visualvm\profiler
Tomcat version:
Tomcat 6.0.32
I am running both the VisualVM and Tomcat at win server 2008. Anything i did wrong?

I had the same problem before.
You must have downloaded the version from jvisualvm homepage, right?
Don't do it!
If you use new jdk 1.7, VisualVM is already packaged in your jdk folder.
Use this version, you will not have any problem with memory sample.

This blog post leads me to believe that the temp directories of JVisualVM and Tomcat need to be the same for memory sampling to work. One of the comments on the post:
the temp directory must be set to the one used by JVisualVM, which can be discovered from the VisualVM system properties tab (java.io.tmpdir). Once I set the CATALINA_TMPDIR directory properly, this worked beautifully.

I've just run into this same issue and the answers above solved my problem but it took me a while to figure out how. Just in case anyone else is still having trouble and ends up this far down the thread, I was using the JDK that is part of the weblogic server configured through Eclipse and not the JDK that I installed seperately. I'm still a junior programmer and I wasn't putting 2 and 2 together until I started looking through my eclipse settings and verified my Installed JREs.
Ran the jvisualvm.exe from the weblogic jdk and all worked.

I would check the version of VisualVM is exactly the same as the JVM.
VisualVM is very version specific. I assume its still under fairly rapid development.
(Re posted as an answer as it may be the solution)

I've faced similar issues with JVisualVM, I've even asked a question about it here
A couple of insights/advices:
So, in order to sample memory you don't need jmx options.
I would double check whether you have 64 bit jvms installed along with 32 bit jdks on the same machine (even if they're not running and all the environment vars defined properly), I've read somewhere that sometimes it drives the JVisualVM crazy :) (yes I know it doesn't sound reasonable to us, java developers)
If it doesn't work, just uninstall all jdks that you have and install only 1 that you need. It can solve the issue.
I hope it will help you to resolve the issue, after all like Peter said these things are new and evolving

Here is my solution for similar problem: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16330238/715483
You can resolved this error by
$ ssh -Y user#remotemachine
$ wget http://java.net/projects/visualvm/downloads/download/release135/visualvm_135.zip
$ unzip visualvm_135.zip
$ cd visualvm_135/bin
$ ./visualvm
This instance of visualvm will be full featured, including memory and CPU sampling.
Read more about it here: http://shahriarinia.blogspot.com/2013/05/java-cpumemory-heap-usage-monitoring.html
http://mshahriarinia.com/

Make sure your VirtualVM/JDK is a 32-bit copy if your JRE is. If you are using Eclipse, check the selected JRE on Installed JRE's section.

And I have the same problem.
I always launched tomcat as a service and connected it with visualvm through jmx connection.
When had corrected catalina.bat:
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS%
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9090
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false
and launched it with startup.bat, visualvm automatically determine tomcat, and memory sampling was active.

I've got the same problem but with different envirnoment. My server was a Linux machine, the client a Windows 7 machine, but the problem is the same.
The solution was to launch the jvisualvm in the same machine and with the same user that is running the targeted application. If i run jvisualvm with other other user (ex: root) the memory button became gray.

Firstly, JMX should be enabled. Add the linked command line environment variables necessary to activate JMX if you haven't.
The environment variable CATALINA_TMPDIR should be set to match the JVisualVM as seen in the "System properties" tab of the Local > VisualVM. You can open this by double clicking on the "VisualVM" labeled entry in the Applications pane on the left.
Environment variables can be set by searching for environment, "edit environment variables for your account". New... > Enter a name and value.
If you would like the temporary directory of VisualVM to be somewhere else, you'll have to launch VisualVM from the command line and add an argument.
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_65\bin>jvisualvm.exe -J-Djava.io.tmpdir=C:\Users\You\Temp