System limit for number of file watchers reached

Support
1

Environments:

OS: Qubes 4.2

- Working: Debian 12 minimal template distro-morphed

- Problematic: Debian 13 minimal template distro-morphed

With kicksecure recently supporting Debian 13, I created a new Qubes template cloned from the default debian 13 minimal, and then followed the distro morphing instructions. I’m now seeing this error when running a node app during development:

Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached, watch

This did not occur on the Debian 12 distro-morphed app vm.

I know I can fix it by increasing the inotify watcher limit in the kernel, but I’m wondering if this is a result of kicksecure implementing some type of enhanced file watching settings.

As an aside, when I open a new terminal and run top, there is a zombie process owned by canary-daemon. Could this be related to kicksecure, or part of deb13?

2

There are new features in Kicksecure 18 that use inotify in the background (not a ton of them but some). Maybe the app you were using very nearly used up all available file watchers, and the few that Kicksecure 18 uses are pushing you over the limit?

Moderation comment: One issue = one forum thread please.

1 Like