What does errno 151 (ESTALE) mean?

ESTALE

Stale nfs file handle

On Solaris, ESTALE is errno value 151. The base message is Stale NFS file handle, but the useful diagnostic context is narrower than the short message: solaris NFS found that a file handle no longer identifies the server object it once named.

For ESTALE, use the Solaris-specific errno table first, then compare with POSIX only for portable behavior. For ESTALE, some Solaris values share names with other UNIX systems but have different numbers or more specific historical meanings.

What to check for ESTALE

• Reopen the path and refresh cached directory entries.
• Check whether the file or directory was removed, replaced, exported differently, or served after a filesystem remount.
• Do not continue using the stale file handle as if it were a transient network timeout.

References for ESTALE

• Oracle Solaris intro(2): error numbers
• illumos errno.h definitions
• POSIX errno.h

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