Too Many Open files failure with Vivaldi 7.0

emk69

With the update to 7.0.3495.10-1, Vivaldi no longer opens, but gets the following error during startup:
ERROR:proxy_config_service_linux.cc(626)] inotify_init failed: Too many open files (24)

System: Kubuntu 24.04, no network proxy (direct connection via wired ethernet). Tried a few versions of kernel 6.8.0-48, 6.8.0-47, 6.5.0-44. Vivaldi installed from repo.vivaldi.com/stable/deb/stable main. My last update was a 6.9 version. AMD CPU with internal graphics using default drivers. I've been a happy Vivaldi user on this (and earlier) configurations since version 2.

I've already tried starting vivaldi with --disable-gpu and --disable-extensions with no change, done using the command line.

In addition to requesting help with a fix or workaround, I'm considering reverting to 6.9 as a temporary measure, but I need to keep my session configuration and settings.. Does anyone know if the update to 7.0 involved a change to the session or configuration files?

I can run any requested troubleshooting tests and gather data.

Thanks in advance,
Eric

mib2berlin

@emk69
Hi, please don't revert to an older version, this will break your user profile, if it is not already broken.
The sessions files are often the culprit, move the folder Session in your profile .config/vivaldi/Default to a save place.
If Vivaldi start the session files are corrupt and there is no way to restore them.
If it still not start move the whole folder "Default" or rename it.
Depends on you use sync or not you can copy files like Preferences back to the new created "Default" folder, it store all settings, foe example.

Cheers, mib

emk69

@mib2berlin
Thanks for the quick reply.
I do have a backup vivaldi directory tree (the data), but it's from August. Still better than nothing. So I'll try wiping the files, first. If it works, I'll try the backup.

Eric

mib2berlin

@emk69
If you wipe all user data anyway you can downgrade, August was Vivaldi 6.9, I am not sure if this backup work in 7.0.

Old deps and rpms in the Archive.

emk69

@mib2berlin
It's not a failure of the profile. I renamed the .config/vivaldi/Default/Sessions directory and started vivaldi. Same problem recurred with same error messages.

Eric

mib2berlin

@emk69
AH, it is not a session files issue, rename the whole vivaldi folder, you get a new one at next start.
If this also not work it is something in your Vivaldi install or your system, no idea what the error ERROR:proxy_config_service_linux.cc(626)] inotify_init failed: Too many open files (24) means, never saw it.

yngve

@emk69 "Too many open files" may not refer just to files used by Vivaldi, but that other processes are keeping many files open, more than the OS is configured to allow.

This is an error that we tend to hit on new machines when building Vivaldi on Mac (in particular), because all the build processes are accessing too many files at the same time, more than the OS have been configured to allow.

The ulimit command can be used to review what the current limits are, and to change them if you wish.

The referenced code in the error is the KDE version "that reads kioslaverc and simulates gsettings" (I am not familiar with this part of the system, so I am just quoting).

inotify_init is a Linux System API function (If I understand some references it used is to listen for changes to files, may have just 128 slots available by default) , and the "too many files" error code can actually have (at least) three meanings, two different obvious ones, and the third is that there have been too many calls to that function without cleaning up.

emk69

@yngve
My first target was about the too many open files issue. Ubuntu updated the kernel (minor update on 6.8) and Vivaldi (from 6.9 to 7.0) at the same time. After rebooting, two programs failed to start giving the "Too many open files" error: one was a Synology sync daemon and the other was Vivaldi. There were no similar problems reported against either of those programs. Ulimit for a process is set at 1024, as it should be, and actual open file count is around 375 (for a console terminal program). I suspected a kernel regression, so went back one minor version on 6.8, then went back to the final 6.5. The Synology sync daemon was fixed by returning to kernel 6.5, but not Vivaldi. That's when I posted here.

Even if the cause of this failure is the "too many calls to inotify_init() as you mentioned, why now? This computer has run Vivaldi with my big profile for years. Still a mystery.

Eric

yngve

@emk69 I see that there have been some possibly major changes in upstream Chromium 130 in one of the three places where the inotify_init function is used. I don't understand the code enough to say if that leads to a lot of new inotify_init calls there, or not (there is a new major loop related to batches of something in that file), but if it does, then that could explain why the system runs out of inotify instances (AFAICT there is a separate system setting that limits that number, which defaults to 128, unrelated to the normal ulimit number).

Minor observation, considering the similarity of the version numbers, it might be an idea to be clear about what is a Kernel version and what is a Vivaldi version number.

fredallas

@emk69
There is a chance the operating system is hitting the limit of "max_user_instances". You may try running the command sudo cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances in the Linux terminal in order to find out the amount of "max_user_instances" your system is currently allowing. I believe the default setting should be set to 128.

For testing purposes, you may try increasing that value to let's say the double. If your system is using the default value of 128, you may run this other command in order to increase that value sudo sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_instances=256

The setting should take effect immediately and the setting will be reset to its default value once you restart the operating system.

To confirm the new settings is taking effect, you may run again the command sudo cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances

Do not increase the value that much because this may affect the stability of the operating system.

If issue with the apps goes away and the system is stable, you may need to add the following setting to /etc/sysctl.conf in order to make the setting permanent fs.inotify.max_user_instances = 256

Let me know how it goes.

Regards,
Fred D.

mib2berlin

@fredallas
Hi, on Opensuse Tumbleweed it is set to 8192 with kernel 6.12, could it really be so low on Kubuntu?

Cheers, mib

emk69

Hi all,
Vivaldi 7.0.3495.10 (stable channel) now runs. I needed a new, empty .config/vivaldi/Default directory. Starting vivaldi allowed a clean setup. After shutting down, I restored the previous .config/vivaldi/Default/Sessions directory, last run using vivaldi 6.9, which opened correctly with all of my previous windows/tabs. I then restored specific files for bookmarks, history, and ad-block states and it all runs properly. My password history is the only thing missing, but it can be recreated since all account credentials are in a password manager.

I'm still running kernel 6.5 because there's still another program that fails with open file descriptor errors on the latest 6.8. I've not gone farther with that issue.

Thanks to all for your help. I hope to return to the file descriptor issue if time permits, before some other change makes it go away.

Eric