React Native Error ENOSPC System limit for number of file watchers reached

Question

I have setup a new blank react native app  After installing few node modules  I got this error  Running application on PGN518  internal fs watchers js 173    throw error        Error  ENOSPC  System limit for number of file watchers reached  watch   home badis Desktop react-native albums node modules  staging     at FSWatcher start  internal fs watchers js 165 26     at Object watch  fs js 1253 11     at NodeWatcher watchdir   home badis Desktop react-native albums node modules sane src node watcher  js 175 20     at NodeWatcher  lt anonymous gt    home badis Desktop react-native albums node modules sane src node watcher  js 310 16     at  home badis Desktop react-native albums node modules graceful-fs polyfills js 285 20    at FSReqWrap oncomplete  fs js 154 5   I know it s related to no enough space for watchman to watch for all file changes  I want to know what s the best course of action to take here   Should I ignore node modules folder by adding it to  watchmanconfig

User · Accepted Answer

Linux uses the inotify package to observe filesystem events, individual files or directories.

Since React / Angular hot-reloads and recompiles files on save it needs to keep track of all project's files. Increasing the inotify watch limit should hide the warning messages.

You could try editing

# insert the new value into the system config
echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

# check that the new value was applied
cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

# config variable name (not runnable)
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288

User · Answer

I encountered this issue on a linuxmint distro  It appeared to have happened when there was so many folders and subfolders files I added to the  public folder in my app  I applied this fix and it worked well       echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf  change directory into the  etc folder  cd  etc  then run this  sudo systcl -p  You may have to close your terminal and npm start again to get it to work   If this fails i recommend installing react-scripts globally and running your application directly with that     npm i -g --save react-scripts  then instead of npm start run react-scripts start to run your application

User · Answer

From the official document    Visual Studio Code is unable to watch for file changes in this large workspace   error ENOSPC   When you see this notification  it indicates that the VS Code file watcher is running out of handles because the workspace is large and contains many files  The current limit can be viewed by running   cat  proc sys fs inotify max user watches  The limit can be increased to its maximum by editing       etc sysctl conf   and adding this line to the end of the file      fs inotify max user watches 524288   The new value can then be loaded in by running      sudo sysctl -p   Note that Arch Linux works a little differently  See Increasing the amount of inotify watchers for details   While 524 288 is the maximum number of files that can be watched  if you re in an environment that is particularly memory constrained  you may wish to lower the number  Each file watch takes up 540 bytes  32-bit  or  1kB  64-bit   so assuming that all 524 288 watches are consumed  that results in an upper bound of around 256MB  32-bit  or 512MB  64-bit       Another option   is to exclude specific workspace directories from the VS Code file watcher with the files watcherExclude setting  The default for files watcherExclude excludes node modules and some folders under  git  but you can add other directories that you don t want VS Code to track    files watcherExclude              git objects      true           git subtree-cache      true          node modules        true

User · Answer

The meaning of this error is that the number of files monitored by the system has reached the limit    Result  The command executed failed  Or throw a warning  such as executing a react-native start VSCode   Solution   Modify the number of system monitoring files  Ubuntu  sudo gedit  etc sysctl conf  Add a line at the bottom  fs inotify max user watches 524288  Then save and exit   sudo sysctl -p  to check it  Then it is solved

User · Answer

As already pointed out by  snishalaka  you can increase the number of inotify watchers    However  I think the default number is high enough and is only reached when processes are not cleaned up properly  Hence  I simply restarted my computer as proposed on a related github issue and the error message was gone

User · Answer

I had the same problem by using library wifi but when i changed my network it worked perfectly   Change your network connection

User · Answer

You can fix it  that increasing the amount of inotify watchers   If you are not interested in the technical details and only want to get Listen to work    If you are running Debian  RedHat  or another similar Linux distribution  run the following in a terminal         echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf  amp  amp  sudo sysctl -p  If you are running ArchLinux  run the following command instead      echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee  etc sysctl d 40-max-user-watches conf  amp  amp  sudo sysctl --system    Then paste it in your terminal and press on enter to run it     The Technical Details   Listen uses inotify by default on Linux to monitor directories for changes  It s not uncommon to encounter a system limit on the number of files you can monitor  For example  Ubuntu Lucid s  64bit  inotify limit is set to 8192   You can get your current inotify file watch limit by executing     cat  proc sys fs inotify max user watches   When this limit is not enough to monitor all files inside a directory  the limit must be increased for Listen to work properly   You can set a new limit temporary with     sudo sysctl fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo sysctl -p   If you like to make your limit permanent  use     echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf   sudo sysctl -p   You may also need to pay attention to the values of max queued events and max user instances if listen keeps on complaining

User · Answer

Firstly you can run every time with root privileges sudo npm start  Or you can delete node modules folder and use npm install to install again  or you can get permanent solution echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf  amp  amp  sudo sysctl -p

User · Answer

delete react node modules  rm -r node modules  yarn or npm install  yarn start or npm start   if error occurs use this method again

User · Answer

Please refer this link 1   Visual Studio code has mentioned a brief explanation for this error message  I also encountered the same error  Adding the below parameter in the relavant file will fix this issue   fs inotify max user watches 524288   1  https   code visualstudio com docs setup linux  visual-studio-code-is-unable-to-watch-for-file-changes-in-this-large-workspace-error-enospc

User · Answer

Late answer  and there are many good answers already  In case you want a simple script to check if the maximum file watches is big enough  and if not  increase the limit  here it is     usr bin env bash  let current watches  sysctl -n fs inotify max user watches   if    current watches  lt  80000    then   echo  quot Current max user watches   current watches  is less than 80000  quot  else   echo  quot Current max user watches   current watches  is already equal to or greater than 80000  quot    exit 0 fi  if sudo sysctl -w fs inotify max user watches 80000  amp  amp  sudo sysctl -p  amp  amp  echo fs inotify max user watches 80000   sudo tee  etc sysctl d 10-user-watches conf then   echo  quot max user watches changed to 80000  quot  else   echo  quot Could not change max user watches  quot    exit 1 fi  The script increases the limit to 80000  but feel free to set a limit that you want

User · Answer

It happened to me with a node app I was developing on a Debian based distro  First  a simple restart solved it  but it happened again on another app  Since it s related with the number of watchers that inotify uses to monitors files and look for changes in a directory  you have to set a higher number as limit  I was able to solve it from the answer posted here  thanks to him   So  I ran  echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf  amp  amp  sudo sysctl -p  Read more about what   s happening at https   github com guard listen wiki Increasing-the-amount-of-inotify-watchers the-technical-details Hope it helps

User · Answer

If you have any experience with Expo  React Native   you would know that restarting the computer if always on the table  So if it s a local situation  which happened unexpectedly  and it s not production or anything  I suggest to first RESTART YOUR COMPUTER  bcos that s what solved it for me

User · Answer

I solved this issue by using sudo ie  sudo yarn start   or   sudo npm start

User · Answer

If you are running your project in Docker  you should do the echo fs inotify max user watches 524288   sudo tee -a  etc sysctl conf and all other commands in the host machine  since the container will inherit that setting automatically  and doing it directly inside it will not work

[react-native] React Native Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached

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