deb package install fails if /usr/bin/watchexec already exists

[ngirard]

Using Watchexec 1.15.1, then 1.18.0 on Ubuntu 21.10.

I stumbled upon this error message when running the following command, which used to work fine:

watchexec -p -w ~/Obsidian -e md -i './at/' "just handle_md"
Error: I/O error: Bad file descriptor (os error 9)

Updated from v1.15.1 to v1.18.0 to no avail.
Suggested RUST_LOG=1 didn't help.
Adding --verbose to invocation didn't help either.
Trying to increase verbosity as offered by latest release using -vvv failed with

error: The argument '--verbose' was provided more than once, but cannot be used multiple times

I'm not feeling lucky today !
Any thoughts ?

Cheers

[passcod]

If --verbose didn't give you a lot of output and -vvv didn't work I'm inclined to think you didn't actually upgrade to 1.18. Can you provide:

• output of watchexec --version
• logging output from --verbose
• how you installed 1.18
• the error message you get on 1.18 (the format changed a bit, so it wouldn't show up as you gave)

[ngirard]

I'm inclined to think you didn't actually upgrade to 1.18

As a matter of fact, you're right !
I didn't pay much attention to the output of dpkg -i when performing the upgrade, and it turns out that it had failed:

LANG=C sudo dpkg -i watchexec-1.18.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb
(Reading database ... 524320 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack watchexec-1.18.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb ...
Unpacking watchexec-cli (1.18.0) ...
dpkg: error processing archive watchexec-1.18.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb (--install):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/watchexec', which is also in package watchexec 1.15.1
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 watchexec-1.18.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.deb

[passcod]

Guess you need to uninstall the old one first, I'll make a note in the release.

[ngirard]

Sure.

Relevant info: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1290262/unable-to-install-bat-error-trying-to-overwrite-usr-crates2-json-which

[ngirard]

After proper upgrading, I'm left with:

[[Native watcher failed to instantiate: Too many open files (os error 24)]]

The initial problem is gone though.
I'll rename this issue to match the package upgrade problem. Feel free to close it whenever you want.

[passcod]

That's probably the same underlying cause. Something to do with this? https://watchexec.github.io/docs/inotify-limits.html or other ulimits

[ngirard]

Yeah, I should check that. I already bumped that value years ago, I guess it was reset after a system upgrade.

Thanks for your feedback !

[ngirard]

That's probably the same underlying cause. Something to do with this? https://watchexec.github.io/docs/inotify-limits.html or other ulimits

There might be another problem.
After doing

echo 1000000 | sudo tee /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

(1,000,000)
I'm still getting the same error message:

[[Native watcher failed to instantiate: Too many open files (os error 24)]]

whereas the number of files to watch is just

find . -type f -name '*.md'|wc -l
4179

I should perhaps open a new issue for this ?

[passcod]

Given the error code it's likely to be one of these two:

   EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file
          descriptors has been reached.

   ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files
          has been reached.

(from the inotify_init(2) manpage)

So you'll need to check your system ulimits. Maybe try rebooting in the first instance?

[ngirard]

I'm about to file a new issue related to the Too many open files error.

This issue is now only about the deb package installation.

[ngirard]

I could upgrade flawlessly from v0.18.0 to v0.18.4 using the deb package, so it seems like this issue can be closed as well !