What does Windows error code 6818 (ERROR_CANT_RECOVER_WITH_HANDLE_OPEN) mean?

 
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ERROR_LOG_CORRUPTION_DETECTED ERROR_RM_DISCONNECTED

ERROR_CANT_RECOVER_WITH_HANDLE_OPEN

An open file handle is preventing transactional recovery from establishing consistent state

ERROR_CANT_RECOVER_WITH_HANDLE_OPEN is a Transactional NTFS (TxF) file-system status. TxF recovery may need exclusive control over file state that was involved in an incomplete transaction. This status reports that recovery cannot continue because a handle to the file is still open. It differs from a sharing violation during normal file access: the blocked operation is transactional recovery of the resource manager or affected file state.

Identify the process holding the file handle and determine whether it is part of the application, a service, antivirus software, indexing, or another system component. Stop new opens before recovery and close the existing handle through the owning process; forcibly editing TxF metadata while a handle remains open risks making recovery assumptions false. After the handle is gone, rerun the supported recovery or mount path and check the resource-manager state.

What to inspect

  • Find the process and handle that keep the file open during recovery.
  • Quiesce the workload so the handle is not immediately reopened.
  • Retry the documented recovery path only after all blocking handles are closed.

References


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