React Native Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached

Question

I have setup a new blank react native app.

After installing few node modules I got this error.

Running application on PGN518. internal/fs/watchers.js:173    throw error;    ^  Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached, watch '/home/badis/Desktop/react-native/albums/node_modules/.staging'    at FSWatcher.start (internal/fs/watchers.js:165:26)    at Object.watch (fs.js:1253:11)    at NodeWatcher.watchdir (/home/badis/Desktop/react-native/albums/node modules/sane/src/node watcher. js:175:20)    at NodeWatcher.<anonymous> (/home/badis/Desktop/react-native/albums/node modules/sane/src/node watcher. js:310:16)    at /home/badis/Desktop/react-native/albums/node modules/graceful-fs/polyfills.js:285:20    at FSReqWrap.oncomplete (fs.js:154:5) 

I know it's related to no enough space for watchman to watch for all file changes.

I want to know what's the best course of action to take here ?

Should I ignore node_modules folder by adding it to .watchmanconfig ?

Answer 1

Linux uses the inotify package to observe filesystem events, individual files or directories.

Since React / Angular hot-reloads and recompiles files on save it needs to keep track of all project's files. Increasing the inotify watch limit should hide the warning messages.

You could try editing

# insert the new value into the system config echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p  # check that the new value was applied cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches  # config variable name (not runnable) fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288