Node.JS: Getting error : [nodemon] Internal watch failed: watch ENOSPC

Javascript Problem Overview

I just installed Node.js on my Ubuntu 14.04 operating system for the first time. I also installed npm. The next step in my installation process was installing nodemon. This all worked out fine.

But, when I run nodemon by typing nodemon app.js in my command line, I get the following error...

[nodemon] 1.8.1 [nodemon] to restart at any time, enter rs[nodemon] watching: *.* [nodemon] startingnode app.js[nodemon] Internal watch failed: watch ENOSPC

In the command line below the error...

alopex@Alopex:~/Desktop/coding_dojo/week-9/javascript/node/testing_node$ Hello World

Why is this happening? Is this normal behavior for nodemon? If not, how can I fix it?

Side notes...

app.js is a Javascript file with console.log(111) inside of it.
node version is v0.10.25
npm version is 1.3.10
nodemon version is 1.8.1
ubuntu version is...

Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS Release: 14.04 Codename: trusty

Javascript Solutions

Solution 1 - Javascript

It appears that my max ports weren't configured correctly. I ran the following code and it worked...

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=582222 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

What this command does is to increase the number of watches allowed for a single user. By the default the number can be low (8192 for example). When nodemon tries to watch large numbers of directories for changes it has to create several watches, which can surpass that limit.

You could also solve this problem by:

sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=582222 && sudo sysctl -p

But the way it was written first will make this change permanent.

Solution 2 - Javascript

On running node server shows Following Errors and solutions:

nodemon server.js

> [nodemon] 1.17.2 > > [nodemon] to restart at any time, enter rs > > [nodemon] watching: . > > [nodemon] starting node server.js

[nodemon] Internal watch failed: watch /home/aurum304/jin ENOSPC

sudo pkill -f node

or

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

Solution 3 - Javascript

Erik, You can just kill all the other node processes by

> pkill -f node

and then restart your server again. It'll work just fine then.

Solution 4 - Javascript

As per discussion over here, ENOSPC means Error No more hard-disk space available. Reason why this much memory required by nodemon or gulp-nodemon (in my case) is that it was watching contents of a folder which it shouldn't. To fix that nodemon has ignore setting that can be used to tell nodemon what not to watch. Have a look at nodemon sample config here.

Solution 5 - Javascript

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

This worked for me

Solution 6 - Javascript

[nodemon] Internal watch failed: watch /home/Document/nmmExpressServer/bin ENOSPC
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `nodemon ./bin/www`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script.

This is the error I got when running nodemon ./bin/www.

> The solution was closing an Atom window that had a entire directory of folders open in the project window.

I don't know why, but I'm assuming Atom and nodemon use similar processes to watch files/folders.

Solution 7 - Javascript

Try this....

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

Solution 8 - Javascript

Add a nodemon.json configuration file in your root folder and specify ignore patterns for example:

nodemon.json

{
  "ignore": [
    "*.test.js", 
    "dist/*"
  ]
}

Note that by default .git, node_modules, bower_components, .nyc_output, coverage and .sass-cache are ignored so you don't need to add them to your configuration.

Explanation: This error happens because you exceeded the max number of watchers allowed by your system (i.e. nodemon has no more disk space to watch all the files - which probably means you are watching not important files). So you ignore non-important files that you don't care about changes in them for example the build output or the test cases.

Solution 9 - Javascript

in my case closing the visual studio code then starting the server did the trick

Operating system - ubuntu 16.4 lts

node.js version - 8.11.1

npm version - 6.0.0

Solution 10 - Javascript

Instead of specifying a list of directories to ignore (e.g. negative), you can also specify a list of directories to watch (e.g positive):

nodemon --watch dir1 --watch dir2  dir1/examples/index.js

In my particular case, I had one directory I wanted to watch and about nine I wanted to ignore, so specifying '--watch' was much simpler than specifying '--ignore'

Solution 11 - Javascript

If the operating system is Linux then just use it will work

   echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

Solution 12 - Javascript

I had the same error, but in Ubuntu 14.04 inside Windows 10 (Bash on Ubuntu on Windows). All I did to overcome the error was to update the Creators update, which then allowed me to install 16.04 version of Ubuntu bash and then after installing newest version of node (by this steps) I installed also the newest version of npm and then the nodemon started to work properly.

Solution 13 - Javascript

Try reopening VS code or Atom with more specific directory where your app.js is present. I had a lot of folders opened and this problem occured. But once I opened my specific folder and tried once again, it worked.

Solution 14 - Javascript

There must be a better way of solving this, than what I suggest. I hope some experts land on this page. Also note that I was working on a development server and thus could afford to kill all processes of node. This may not be what you want.

I followed the answer of @zubair-alam and got it fixed for the first time. I added the "ignore" to the package.json (Even though the referred link says it is the default).

 ........ Before
  "ignore": [
    ".git",
    "node_modules/**/node_modules"
  ],
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "start": "nodemon ./index.js --exec babel-node -e js"
  },
 ........ After

However the error returned again as soon as I added a new file to the folder. I was working on Linux, so I basically killed all process related to node, by saying the following.

killall node

and then restarted npm by saying. The server started without errors.

npm start

You will have to change the killall command using a command specific to your operating system. See this discussion.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Erik Åsland	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Javascript	Erik Åsland	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Javascript	Mani Abi Anand	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Javascript	pawanpandey392	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Javascript	Zubair Alam	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Javascript	iClass Chima	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Javascript	codeinaire	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Javascript	MD SHAYON	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Javascript	Ahmed Soliman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Javascript	Vishal Verma	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Javascript	vt5491	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Javascript	Siddhartha Mukherjee	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Javascript	Šimon Hrabec	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Javascript	Debabrata Bhakat	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Javascript	Amit	View Answer on Stackoverflow