node and Error EMFILE too many open files

Question

For some days I have searched for a working solution to an error  Error  EMFILE  too many open files  It seems that many people have the same problem  The usual answer involves increasing the number of file descriptors  So  I ve tried this  sysctl -w kern maxfiles 20480  The default value is 10240  This is a little strange in my eyes  because the number of files I m handling in the directory is under 10240  Even stranger  I still receive the same error after I ve increased the number of file descriptors  Second question  After a number of searches I found a work around for the  quot too many open files quot  problem  var requestBatches       function batchingReadFile filename  callback         First check to see if there is already a batch   if  requestBatches hasOwnProperty filename         requestBatches filename  push callback       return            Otherwise start a new one and make a real request   var batch   requestBatches filename     callback     FS readFile filename  onRealRead           Flush out the batch on complete   function onRealRead         delete requestBatches filename       for  var i   0  l   batch length  i  lt  l  i            batch i  apply null  arguments                function printFile file       console log file      dir    quot  Users xaver Downloads xaver xxx xxx  quot   var files   fs readdirSync dir    for  i in files       filename   dir   files i       console log filename       batchingReadFile filename  printFile    Unfortunately I still recieve the same error  What is wrong with this code

User · Answer

I did all the stuff above mentioned for same problem but nothing worked. I tried below it worked 100%. Simple config changes.

Option 1 set limit (It won't work most of the time)

user@ubuntu:~$ ulimit -n 65535

check available limit

user@ubuntu:~$ ulimit -n
1024

Option 2 To increase the available limit to say 65535

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

add the following line to it

fs.file-max = 65535

run this to refresh with new config

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo sysctl -p

edit the following file

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo vim /etc/security/limits.conf

add following lines to it

root soft     nproc          65535    
root hard     nproc          65535   
root soft     nofile         65535   
root hard     nofile         65535

edit the following file

user@ubuntu:~$ sudo vim /etc/pam.d/common-session

add this line to it

session required pam_limits.so

logout and login and try the following command

user@ubuntu:~$ ulimit -n
65535

Option 3 Just add below line in

DefaultLimitNOFILE=65535

to /etc/systemd/system.conf and /etc/systemd/user.conf

User · Answer

I am not sure whether this will help anyone  I started working on a big project with lot of dependencies which threw me the same error  My colleague suggested me to install watchman using brew and that fixed this problem for me    brew update brew install watchman   Edit on 26 June 2019  Github link to watchman

User · Answer

Using the graceful-fs module by Isaac Schlueter  node js maintainer  is probably the most appropriate solution  It does incremental back-off if EMFILE is encountered  It can be used as a drop-in replacement for the built-in fs module

User · Answer

This will probably fix your problem if you re struggling to deploy a React solution that was created with the Visual Studio template  and has a web config   In Azure Release Pipelines  when selecting the template  use  Azure App Service deployment Instead of  Deploy a Node js app to Azure App Service It worked for me

User · Answer

I had this issue  and i solved it by running npm update and it worked  In some cases you may need to remove node modules rm -rf node modules

User · Answer

Use the latest fs-extra   I had that problem on Ubuntu  16 and 18  with plenty of file socket-descriptors space  count with lsof  wc -l   Used fs-extra version 8 1 0  After the update to 9 0 0 the  Error  EMFILE  too many open files  vanished   I ve experienced diverse problems on diverse OS  with node handling filesystems  Filesystems are obviously not trivial

User · Answer

Here s my two cents  Considering a CSV file is just lines of text I ve streamed the data  strings  to avoid this problem  Easiest solution for me that worked in my usecase  It can be used with graceful fs or standard fs  Just note that there won t be headers in the file when creating     import graceful-fs or normal fs const fs   require  quot graceful-fs quot       or use  const fs   require  quot fs quot        Create output file and set it up to receive streamed data    Flag is to say  quot append quot  so that data can be recursively added to the same file  let fakeCSV   fs createWriteStream  quot   output document csv quot       flags   quot a quot        and the data that needs to be streamed to the file i ve done like this    create custom streamer that can be invoked when needed const customStreamer    dataToWrite    gt      fakeCSV write dataToWrite    quot  n quot        Note that the dataToWrite is simply a string with a custom seperator like  quot   quot  or  quot   quot   i e  const dataToWrite    quot batman quot     quot   quot     quot superman quot  customStreamer dataToWrite    This writes  quot batman superman quot  to the file    Note that there s no error catching or whatsoever in this example  Docs  https   nodejs org api fs html fs fs createwritestream path options

User · Answer

You re reading too many files  Node reads files asynchronously  it ll be reading all files at once  So you re probably reading the 10240 limit    See if this works   var fs   require  fs   var events   require  events   var util   require  util   var path   require  path    var FsPool   module exports   function dir        events EventEmitter call this      this dir   dir      this files           this active           this threads   1      this on  run   this runQuta bind this         So will act like an event emitter util inherits FsPool  events EventEmitter    FsPool prototype runQuta   function         if this files length     0  amp  amp  this active length     0            return this emit  done              if this active length  lt  this threads            var name   this files shift            this active push name          var fileName   path join this dir  name           var self   this          fs stat fileName  function err  stats                if err                  throw err              if stats isFile                      fs readFile fileName  function err  data                        if err                          throw err                      self active splice self active indexOf name   1                      self emit  file   name  data                       self emit  run                                       else                   self active splice self active indexOf name   1                  self emit  dir   name                   self emit  run                                        return this    FsPool prototype init   function         var dir   this dir      var self   this      fs readdir dir  function err  files            if err              throw err          self files   files         self emit  run               return this    var fsPool   new FsPool   dirname   fsPool on  file   function fileName  fileData        console log  file name      fileName      console log  file data     fileData toString  utf8        fsPool on  dir   function dirName        console log  dir name      dirName      fsPool on  done   function         console log  done       fsPool init

User · Answer

This may happen after changing the Node version ERR emfile too many open files  Restart the computer brew install watchman  It should be absolutely fixed the issue

User · Answer

cwait is a general solution for limiting concurrent executions of any functions that return promises   In your case the code could be something like   var Promise   require  bluebird    var cwait   require  cwait        Allow max  10 concurrent file reads  var queue   new cwait TaskQueue Promise  10   var read   queue wrap Promise promisify batchingReadFile     Promise map files  function filename        console log filename       return read filename

User · Answer

For when graceful-fs doesn t work    or you just want to understand where the leak is coming from   Follow this process   e g  graceful-fs isn t gonna fix your wagon if your issue is with sockets   From My Blog Article  http   www blakerobertson com devlog 2014 1 11 how-to-determine-whats-causing-error-connect-emfile-nodejs html How To Isolate This command will output the number of open handles for nodejs processes  lsof -i -n -P   grep nodejs  COMMAND     PID    USER   FD   TYPE    DEVICE SIZE OFF NODE NAME     nodejs    12211    root 1012u  IPv4 151317015      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 40371- gt 54 236 3 170 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1013u  IPv4 151279902      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 43656- gt 54 236 3 172 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1014u  IPv4 151317016      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 34450- gt 54 236 3 168 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1015u  IPv4 151289728      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 52691- gt 54 236 3 173 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1016u  IPv4 151305607      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 47707- gt 54 236 3 172 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1017u  IPv4 151289730      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 45423- gt 54 236 3 171 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1018u  IPv4 151289731      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 36090- gt 54 236 3 170 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1019u  IPv4 151314874      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 49176- gt 54 236 3 172 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1020u  IPv4 151289768      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 45427- gt 54 236 3 171 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1021u  IPv4 151289769      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 36094- gt 54 236 3 170 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1022u  IPv4 151279903      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 43836- gt 54 236 3 171 80  ESTABLISHED  nodejs    12211    root 1023u  IPv4 151281403      0t0  TCP 10 101 42 209 43930- gt 54 236 3 172 80  ESTABLISHED        Notice the  1023u  last line  - that s the 1024th file handle which is the default maximum  Now  Look at the last column   That indicates which resource is open   You ll probably see a number of lines all with the same resource name   Hopefully  that now tells you where to look in your code for the leak  If you don t know  multiple node processes  first lookup which process has pid 12211   That ll tell you the process  In my case above  I noticed that there were a bunch of very similar IP Addresses  They were all 54 236 3      By doing ip address lookups  was able to determine in my case it was pubnub related  Command Reference Use this syntax to determine how many open handles a process has open    To get a count of open files for a certain pid I used this command to test the number of files that were opened after doing various events in my app  lsof -i -n -P   grep  quot 8465 quot    wc -l    lsof -i -n -P   grep  quot nodejs  8465 quot    wc -l 28   lsof -i -n -P   grep  quot nodejs  8465 quot    wc -l 31   lsof -i -n -P   grep  quot nodejs  8465 quot    wc -l 34  What is your process limit  ulimit -a  The line you want will look like this  open files                       -n  1024  Permanently change the limit   tested on Ubuntu 14 04  nodejs v  7 9  In case you are expecting to open many connections  websockets is a good example   you can permanently increase the limit   file   etc pam d common-session  add to the end    session required pam limits so   file   etc security limits conf  add to the end  or edit if already exists    root soft  nofile 40000   root hard  nofile 100000   restart your nodejs and logout login from ssh   this may not work for older NodeJS you ll need to restart server  use  instead of  if your node runs with different uid

User · Answer

I just finished writing a little snippet of code to solve this problem myself  all of the other solutions appear way too heavyweight and require you to change your program structure   This solution just stalls any fs readFile or fs writeFile calls so that there are no more than a set number in flight at any given time       Queuing reads and writes  so your nodejs script doesn t overwhelm system limits catastrophically global maxFilesInFlight   100     Set this value to some number safeish for your system var origRead   fs readFile  var origWrite   fs writeFile   var activeCount   0  var pending        var wrapCallback   function cb       return function            activeCount--          cb apply this Array prototype slice call arguments            if  activeCount  lt  global maxFilesInFlight  amp  amp  pending length               console log  Processing Pending read write                pending shift                          fs readFile   function        var args   Array prototype slice call arguments       if  activeCount  lt  global maxFilesInFlight           if  args 1  instanceof Function               args 1    wrapCallback args 1              else if  args 2  instanceof Function                args 2    wrapCallback args 2                      activeCount            origRead apply fs args         else           console log  Delaying read   args 0            pending push function                fs readFile apply fs args                         fs writeFile   function        var args   Array prototype slice call arguments       if  activeCount  lt  global maxFilesInFlight           if  args 1  instanceof Function               args 1    wrapCallback args 1              else if  args 2  instanceof Function                args 2    wrapCallback args 2                      activeCount            origWrite apply fs args         else           console log  Delaying write   args 0            pending push function                fs writeFile apply fs args

User · Answer

I ran into this problem today  and finding no good solutions for it  I created a module to address it  I was inspired by  fbartho s snippet  but wanted to avoid overwriting the fs module   The module I wrote is Filequeue  and you use it just like fs   var Filequeue   require  filequeue    var fq   new Filequeue 200      max number of files to open at once  fq readdir   Users xaver Downloads xaver xxx xxx    function err  files        if err            throw err            files forEach function file            fq readFile   Users xaver Downloads xaver xxx xxx     file  function err  data                   do something here

User · Answer

Like all of us  you are another victim of asynchronous I O  With asynchronous calls  if you loop around a lot of files  Node js will start to open a file descriptor for each file to read and then will wait for action until you close it   File descriptor remains open until resource is available on your server to read it  Even if your files are small and reading or updating is fast  it takes some time  but in the same time your loop don t stop to open new files descriptor  So if you have too many files  the limit will be soon reached  and you get a beautiful EMFILE   There is one solution  creating a queue to avoid this effect   Thanks to people who wrote Async  there is a very useful function for that  There is a method called Async queue  you create a new queue with a limit and then add filenames to the queue   Note  If you have to open many files  it would be a good idea to store which files are currently open and don t reopen them infinitely   const fs   require  fs   const async   require  async    var q   async queue function task  callback        console log task filename       fs readFile task filename  utf-8  function  err  data read                callback err task filename data read                       4    var files    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   for  var file in files        q push  filename file   txt    function  err filename res            console log filename     read                You can see that each file is added to the queue  console log filename   but only when the current queue is under the limit you set previously    async queue get information about availability of the queue through a callback  this callback is called only when data file is read and any action you have to do is achieved   see fileRead method   So you cannot be overwhelmed by files descriptor    gt  node   queue js 0 txt     1 txt 2 txt 0 txt read 3 txt 3 txt read 4 txt 2 txt read 5 txt 4 txt read 6 txt 5 txt read 7 txt     1 txt read  biggest file than other  8 txt 6 txt read 9 txt 7 txt read 8 txt read 9 txt read

User · Answer

Had the same problem when running the nodemon command so i reduced the name of files open in sublime text and the error dissappeared

User · Answer

For anyone that might still be looking for solutions  using async-await worked fine for me  fs readdir  lt directory path gt  lt  directory gt   async  err  filenames    gt        if  err            console log err              try           for  let filename of filenames                const fileContent   await new Promise  resolve  reject    gt                    fs readFile  lt dirctory path   filename gt    utf-8    err  content    gt                        if  err                            reject err                                             resolve content                                                          do things with fileContent                 catch  err            console log err

User · Answer

Building on  blak3r s answer  here s a bit of shorthand I use in case it helps other diagnose   If you re trying to debug a Node js script that is running out of file descriptors here s a line to give you the output of lsof used by the node process in question   openFiles   child process execSync  lsof -p   process pid       This will synchronously run lsof filtered by the current running Node js process and return the results via buffer    Then use console log openFiles toString    to convert the buffer to a string and log the results

User · Answer

For nodemon users  Just use the --ignore flag to solve the problem   Example   nodemon app js --ignore node modules  --ignore data

User · Answer

With bagpipe  you just need change   FS readFile filename  onRealRead         var bagpipe   new Bagpipe 10    bagpipe push FS readFile  filename  onRealRead     The bagpipe help you limit the parallel  more details  https   github com JacksonTian bagpipe

User · Answer

I did installing watchman  changing limit etc  and it didn t work in Gulp  Restarting iterm2 actually helped though

[javascript] node and Error: EMFILE, too many open files

Option 1 set limit (It won't work most of the time)

check available limit

Option 2 To increase the available limit to say 65535

add the following line to it

run this to refresh with new config

edit the following file

add following lines to it

edit the following file

add this line to it

logout and login and try the following command

Option 3 Just add below line in

Examples related to javascript

Examples related to node.js

Examples related to macos