diff --git a/test/integration/functional_test.go b/test/integration/functional_test.go
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/test/integration/functional_test.go
+++ b/test/integration/functional_test.go
@@ -366,7 +366,12 @@ func validateStartWithProxy(ctx context.Context, t *testing.T, profile string) {
 
 	// Use more memory so that we may reliably fit MySQL and nginx
 	// changing api server so later in soft start we verify it didn't change
-	startArgs := append([]string{"start", "-p", profile, "--memory=4000", fmt.Sprintf("--apiserver-port=%d", apiPortTest), "--wait=all"}, StartArgs()...)
+	memoryFlag : ="--memory=4000"
+	// to avoid failure for mysq/pv on virtualbox on darwin on free github actions, 
+	if GithubActionRunner() && runtime.GOOS == "darwin" {
+		memoryFlag = "--memory=6000"
+	}
+	startArgs := append([]string{"start", "-p", profile, memoryFlag, fmt.Sprintf("--apiserver-port=%d", apiPortTest), "--wait=all"}, StartArgs()...)
 	c := exec.CommandContext(ctx, Target(), startArgs...)
 	env := os.Environ()
 	env = append(env, fmt.Sprintf("HTTP_PROXY=%s", srv.Addr))
functional test memory change for vbox