encountered error: Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached

[schneidr]

I'm using the experimental option "Automatic library watching" and I'm encountering this error. I read #6833, but disabling the function is not an option for me since I extensively work with the library outside of Immich.

I already tried to increase the watcher limit, first to 512, then 1024, now even to 524288. According to lsof | grep inotify | wc -l I never had more than 200 watchers active. I have about 250k images and videos in my external libraries, so IMO 500k watchers should be more than sufficient.

# docker exec immich_server cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances  
524288

What more can I do to allow enough inotify watchers?

If it matters, here is my compose file:

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/data
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - ${USER_HOMES}:/mnt
    env_file:
      - immich.env
    ports:
      - '127.0.0.1:2283:2283'
      - '[::1]:2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-openvino
    device_cgroup_rules:
      - 'c 189:* rmw'
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
      - /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb
    env_file:
      - immich.env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:9@sha256:3eeb09785cd61ec8e3be35f8804c8892080f3ca21934d628abc24ee4ed1698f6
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:14-vectorchord0.4.3-pgvectors0.2.0@sha256:bcf63357191b76a916ae5eb93464d65c07511da41e3bf7a8416db519b40b1c23
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
    volumes:
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    shm_size: 128mb
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:

Immich version currently running: 2.7.4. Host OS is Debian 13 (OpenMediaVault 8.3.2)

[PCManiacpt]

I just want to add that I keep hitting on this error as well.
In my case, my libraries are CIFS shared from a linux ZFS server over samba.

Immich version v3.1.0

[mcwieger]

Same here. Running on Synology.