In this post, we will learn how to fix the error when you run npm start command for starting a node.js app – Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached.

The error implies that the limit for file watchers has been reached. If you are using inotify watchers to watch changes on your file system, there are chances the limit would be reached. The npm libraries like chokidar usually needs more file watchers.

To fix the error Error: ENOSPC: System limit for number of file watchers reached, simply increase the inotify file watchers count on your operating system by running the following command.

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=512 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

This command sets the inotify watchers limit to 512 and makes it permanent. Note that you can increase this count if your face this error again.