Getting Error in Nexus.log too many open files

Sonatype Nexus Repository
1

Hi Team,

We are running Nexus 3.29 OSS and got below error in nexus.log

Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /app/nexus_home/sonatype-work/nexus3/db/frozen.marker (Too many open files)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open0(Native Method)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(FileInputStream.java:195)
at java.io.FileInputStream.(FileInputStream.java:138)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonFactory.createParser(JsonFactory.java:916)
at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper.readValue(ObjectMapper.java:3351)
at org.sonatype.nexus.orient.internal.freeze.LocalDatabaseFrozenStateManager.readMarkerFile(LocalDatabaseFrozenStateManager.java:122)
… 104 common frames omitted
2026-04-27 06:30:01,536+0800 ERROR [quartz-15-thread-13] *SYSTEM org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.file.internal.FileBlobStoreMetricsStore - Blob store metrics cannot be accessed
org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.BlobStoreMetricsNotAvailableException: java.nio.file.FileSystemException: /app/test: Too many open files
at org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.file.internal.FileBlobStoreMetricsStore.backingFiles(FileBlobStoreMetricsStore.java:98)
at org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.BlobStoreMetricsStoreSupport.getMetrics(BlobStoreMetricsStoreSupport.java:192)
at org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.file.internal.FileBlobStoreMetricsStore$$EnhancerByGuice$$1280e16a.CGLIB$getMetrics$10()
at org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.file.internal.FileBlobStoreMetricsStore$$EnhancerByGuice$$1280e16a$$FastClassByGuice$$200cb1f.invoke()
at com.google.inject.internal.cglib.proxy.$MethodProxy.invokeSuper(MethodProxy.java:228)

java.io.IOException: Too many open files
java.io.IOException: Too many open files

Post above error, nexus instance url was giving error 404 error, URL request time out. Could you please let me know how to fix the error?

Below ulimit -n set for user

ulimit -n
65536

2

Your system is applying a limit to the number of files that Nexus can open, you’ll need to update it.

This support document is for Nexus 2, but the instructions for the various OSes may be helpful - https://support.sonatype.com/hc/en-us/articles/213465218-The-nexus-log-file-is-full-of-too-many-open-files-exceptions-how-can-I-fix-this

3

Hi Matthew,

As I mentioned, we are using Nexus 3.29 and we already have below configured for user.

ulimit -Hn
65536

ulimit -Sn
65536

We are running Nexus process as below not through service.

./nexus start

./nexus stop

As we already have configured ulimit to 65536, not sure why still getting Too many open files error

org.sonatype.nexus.blobstore.BlobStoreMetricsNotAvailableException: java.nio.file.FileSystemException: /app/test: Too many open files

Could you please help to check if any other things we need to configure to avoid this error.

Thanks,

Jagdish

4

I can only suggest the link provided before, and to ensure the ulimit was applied to the service.

While I doubt it is the cause 3.29 is extremely old.

5

Can you show the output of ‘cat /proc/<PID>/limits' (PID of Nexus)?

Also as Matthew pointed out, this is a very old version of Nexus and we have had bugs in the past related to file handle leaks. It may be quicker to upgrade and see how that goes before troubleshooting further.

6

Hi Laurence,

Below is the output of ‘cat /proc/3587311/limits’ (PID of Nexus)

cat /proc/3587311/limits
Limit Soft Limit Hard Limit Units
Max cpu time unlimited unlimited seconds
Max file size unlimited unlimited bytes
Max data size unlimited unlimited bytes
Max stack size 8388608 unlimited bytes
Max core file size unlimited unlimited bytes
Max resident set unlimited unlimited bytes
Max processes 65536 65536 processes
Max open files 65536 65536 files
Max locked memory 8388608 8388608 bytes
Max address space unlimited unlimited bytes
Max file locks unlimited unlimited locks
Max pending signals 254973 254973 signals
Max msgqueue size 819200 819200 bytes
Max nice priority 0 0
Max realtime priority 0 0
Max realtime timeout unlimited unlimited us

Yes, we know Nexus version is too old. For now, we are planning to upgrade to 3.70.x as orient db support till 3.70.x version only. Post that we are planning to buy license, so that we can further do upgrade from 3.70.x to latest version with postgresql database.

Thanks,

Jagdish