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Backup failure due to OS error EMFILE "Too many open files"

Troubleshooting


Problem

Backup may fail due to OS error EMFILE "Too many open files"

Symptom

Various symptoms may happen due to OS error EMFILE "Too many open files". Backup failure is one of them.

You may see following error in db2diag.log:

<timestamp>      LEVEL: Error (OS)
PID     : 12345                TID  : 12345678   PROC : db2sysc 0
INSTANCE: db2inst1             NODE : 000
EDUID   : 12300                EDUNAME: db2med.12345.5 (SAMPLE) 0
FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, oper system services, sqloexecs, probe:10
MESSAGE : ZRC=0x83000018=-2097151976
CALLED  : OS, -, pipe                             OSERR: EMFILE (24)

There are other similar symptoms , for example, db2pfchr may receive EMFILE as well.

[{"Product":{"code":"SSEPGG","label":"Db2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU058","label":"IBM Infrastructure w\/TPS"},"Component":"Recovery - Backup","Platform":[{"code":"PF002","label":"AIX"},{"code":"PF010","label":"HP-UX"},{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"},{"code":"PF027","label":"Solaris"}],"Version":"10.1;10.5;9.5;9.7;9.8","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB10","label":"Data and AI"}}]

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Document Information

Modified date:
30 April 2025

UID

swg21698405

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