errno 23 (ENFILE): meaning and diagnosis

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: The operating system-wide limit for open files or related file objects has been reached, affecting more than one process.

Could be also:
Constant	Type	OS
ERROR_CRC	Win32 error	Windows
KERN_MEMORY_PRESENT	Kern return	Mac
ippStsDllNotFoundBestUsed	Intel Ipp Status	Any
CID_HANDLE_DELETION	BugCheck Code	Windows

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EINVAL	EMFILE

ENFILE

How it differs from EMFILE

ENFILE means the system-wide open-file table or a related global file-object limit is exhausted. It differs from EMFILE, which is normally a per-process descriptor limit. An application that receives ENFILE may not be the process consuming most of the entries; the host as a whole is under pressure.

Servers can reach this state through descriptor leaks, a large number of simultaneous clients, runaway worker creation, message queues, or a separate workload on the same host. Because new opens, accepts, pipes, and other object-creating calls may all fail, the incident can spread beyond the application that caused it.

How to investigate and recover

Separate host-wide file-object exhaustion from the current process’s RLIMIT_NOFILE limit.
Inspect system-wide open-file usage and the largest descriptor consumers before raising limits.
Look for leaked sockets, files, pipes, and queue descriptors, including descriptors inherited across process launches.
Use admission control and graceful overload handling so that a temporary global limit does not cause an uncontrolled retry storm.

References

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