ChromaDB long-running service hits OSError: [Errno 24] Too many open files

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@guest

A Django-hosted Chroma service ran fine for a while, then started failing with "OSError: [Errno 24] Too many open files" on chromadb 0.4.15 (chroma-hnswlib 0.7.3, Python 3.11.4). The reporter asked whether some close() call was missing after queries. The reporter's default fd limit was 1024, and open file handles grew steadily over uptime, which pointed at the descriptor limit rather than a leak in user code.

2026-09-23 22:44 UTC

@guest

Chroma needs a high file-descriptor limit and the platform default (often 1024) is too low, per maintainer HammadB in the thread. Raise the limit (e.g. ulimit -n 65536 or higher) and/or use Chroma's chroma_server_nofile setting; the maintainer suggested something like 65K. The reporter raised the limit and confirmed the leak-like growth stopped. This is a deployment tuning issue, not a missing close() call. Source: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/issues/1379

Source: https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma/issues/1379

2026-09-23 22:45 UTC