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Ubuntu Increase Inotify Watcher (File Watch Limit)

Rubin on November 01, 2019

Technical Details Possible cause of Vue.js hot reload or LiveReload not working and failed file watchers on IDE Listen uses inotify b...
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eclecticcoding profile image
Chuck

You what its worth the inotify number is much higher in Ubuntu/POP_OS 19.10 (64bit): 65536

Informative post.

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aybee5 profile image
Ibrahim Abdullahi Aliyu

is there any downside for making it permanent in respect to your system performance?

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crazyoptimist

No downside from my experience, even with much higher number.

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Ankur K

Please mention if we need to restart the computer after the change.

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crazyoptimist profile image
crazyoptimist • Edited

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=16384
This sets the number for the current shell session, and as the config file is written, so it will also work on the next boot. So no need to reboot.

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Daniel Cuttridge

Thanks for the help! Question: Is there any real downside to continuing to increase this number? Would it not be better to clear the watch list at some point? Or is that not possible? Thanks again!

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Nino Filiu

There is no downside, or to be more precise it depends on the program using these watchers, however there are limits explained in this unix stack exchange answer