Nginx Pod keeps restarting with Exit Code 137 in official Nextcloud Helm deployment

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The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    • 30.0.8-fpm (official image)
  • Operating system and version (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04):
    • Container image based on Debian/bookworm (Nextcloud 30.0.8-fpm) running in Kubernetes v<replace me> on nodes with "<replace OS of nodes>"
  • Web server and version (e.g, Apache 2.4.25):
    • nginx (side-car container from the Helm chart)
  • Reverse proxy and version (e.g. nginx 1.27.2):
    • nginx 1.27.x (same side-car)
  • PHP version (e.g, 8.3):
    • 8.2.28 (with Zend OPcache v8.2.28)
  • Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
    • No – nginx restarts repeatedly
  • When did this problem seem to first start?
    • Since initial deployment on <replace date>
  • Installation method (e.g. AIO, NCP, Bare Metal/Archive, etc.)
    • Official Nextcloud Helm chart
  • Are you using Cloudflare, mod_security, or similar? (Yes / No)
    • No

Summary of the issue you are facing:

The nginx side-car container restarts several times a day with Exit Code 137.
Exit 137 usually indicates the kernel sent SIGKILL (commonly OOM), but node-level and container-level metrics show plenty of free memory and no spikes. The nextcloud-fpm and cron containers stay healthy.

Nextcloud

(Provide any relevant lines from nextcloud.log that correspond to the restart events)

Web Browser

(Only if you see issues in the web UI – probably not relevant for an nginx crash, but include if you notice errors)

Helm values excerpt (resource requests/limits)

nextcloud:
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: "10"
      memory: 22Gi
    requests:
      cpu: "8"
      memory: 20Gi

nginx:
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: "8"
      memory: 12Gi
    requests:
      cpu: "6"
      memory: 10Gi





max_execution_time = 3600
max_input_time     = 3600
memory_limit       = 256M

[www]
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children      = 160
pm.start_servers     = 32
pm.min_spare_servers = 16
pm.max_spare_servers = 48
pm.max_requests      = 500
php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 512M
upload_max_filesize           = 100G
post_max_size                 = 100G