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

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 "too many open files" 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 < l; i++) {
      batch[i].apply(null, arguments);
    }
  }
}

function printFile(file){
    console.log(file);
}

dir = "/Users/xaver/Downloads/xaver/xxx/xxx/"

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?

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

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.

> 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

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("graceful-fs"); // or use: const fs = require("fs") 

// Create output file and set it up to receive streamed data
// Flag is to say "append" so that data can be recursively added to the same file 
let fakeCSV = fs.createWriteStream("./output/document.csv", {
  flags: "a",
});

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) => {
  fakeCSV.write(dataToWrite + "\n");
};

Note that the dataToWrite is simply a string with a custom seperator like ";" or ",". i.e.

const dataToWrite = "batman" + ";" + "superman"
customStreamer(dataToWrite);

This writes "batman;superman" 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

I did installing watchman, changing limit etc. and it didn't work in Gulp.

Restarting iterm2 actually helped though.

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!

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->54.236.3.170:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1013u  IPv4 151279902      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:43656->54.236.3.172:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1014u  IPv4 151317016      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:34450->54.236.3.168:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1015u  IPv4 151289728      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:52691->54.236.3.173:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1016u  IPv4 151305607      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:47707->54.236.3.172:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1017u  IPv4 151289730      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:45423->54.236.3.171:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1018u  IPv4 151289731      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:36090->54.236.3.170:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1019u  IPv4 151314874      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:49176->54.236.3.172:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1020u  IPv4 151289768      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:45427->54.236.3.171:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1021u  IPv4 151289769      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:36094->54.236.3.170:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1022u  IPv4 151279903      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:43836->54.236.3.171:80 (ESTABLISHED)
nodejs    12211    root 1023u  IPv4 151281403      0t0  TCP 10.101.42.209:43930->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 "8465" | wc -l

# lsof -i -n -P | grep "nodejs.*8465" | wc -l
28
# lsof -i -n -P | grep "nodejs.*8465" | wc -l
31
# lsof -i -n -P | grep "nodejs.*8465" | 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.

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.

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));
})

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 && this.active.length === 0) {
        return this.emit('done');
    }
    if(this.active.length < 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()

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/

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

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 < global.maxFilesInFlight && pending.length){
            console.log("Processing Pending read/write");
            pending.shift()();
        }
    };
};
fs.readFile = function(){
    var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
    if (activeCount < 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 < 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);
        });
    }
};

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

For anyone that might still be looking for solutions, using async-await worked fine for me:

fs.readdir(<directory path></directory>, async (err, filenames) => {
    if (err) {
        console.log(err);
    }

    try {
        for (let filename of filenames) {
            const fileContent = await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
                fs.readFile(<dirctory path + filename>, 'utf-8', (err, content) => {
                    if (err) {
                        reject(err);
                    }
                    resolve(content);
                });
            });
            ... // do things with fileContent
        }
    } catch (err) {
        console.log(err);
    }
});

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.

For nodemon users: Just use the --ignore flag to solve the problem.

Example:

nodemon app.js --ignore node_modules/ --ignore data/

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
        }
    });
});

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

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

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.