Timemachine couldn't see backup drive - Exception while running command(['/usr/bin/hostnamectl', '--static']): [Errno 24] Too many open files

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Brief description of the problem

[iMac could not see where timemachine backup was, in gui to it to restart, booted into errors]

Detailed step by step instructions to reproduce the problem

[Install rockstor, run it as time machine backup for over 11TB, do a controlled reboot. The only two things done not normally done was scheduling it to do a weekly btrfs scrub, seemed like a good idea at the time]

Web-UI screenshot

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Error Traceback provided on the Web-UI

[Houston, we've had a problem. Exception while running command(['/usr/bin/hostnamectl', '--static']): [Errno 24] Too many open files
        Traceback (most recent call last):

File “/opt/rockstor/src/rockstor/rest_framework_custom/generic_view.py”, line 41, in _handle_exception
yield
File “/opt/rockstor/src/rockstor/storageadmin/views/appliances.py”, line 41, in get_queryset
self._update_hostname()
File “/opt/rockstor/eggs/Django-1.8.16-py2.7.egg/django/utils/decorators.py”, line 145, in inner
return func(*args, **kwargs)
File “/opt/rockstor/src/rockstor/storageadmin/views/appliances.py”, line 48, in _update_hostname
cur_hostname = gethostname()
File “/opt/rockstor/src/rockstor/system/osi.py”, line 877, in gethostname
o, e, rc = run_command([HOSTNAMECTL, “–static”])
File “/opt/rockstor/src/rockstor/system/osi.py”, line 166, in run_command
raise Exception(“Exception while running command({}): {}”.format(cmd, e))
Exception: Exception while running command([‘/usr/bin/hostnamectl’, ‘–static’]): [Errno 24] Too many open files]

@mdcollins-cds, welcome to the community forums. Could you also provide the version that you are running (wasn’t visible from the screenshot that came with the original message.

This seems to be one of those bugs that occur only occasionally and are hard to reproduce for a fix. I am linking to the latest post on this:

While it doesn’t provide a permanent fix per se, if you look at @phillxnet reference post that @Flox provided it might give you some more insights on what additional information might be needed to help you out.

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Hi @mdcollins-cds,

In addition to @Hooverdan’s recommendation, I would also like to take the opportunity to guide you towards the new Rockstor release announced by @phillxnet below:

You will there see that we started switching from AFP/netatalk to using the Samba protocol, which is now the supported way to use Time Machine. For instructions, I would guide you towards the post below, but make sure to disable the AFP service first, especially given it is the likely culprit to explain the error you reported above.

Hope this helps, and let us know how it goes.

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Thank you but support of the AFP was one the deciding factors why I chose Rockstor. I share to other devices via AFP. Moving to SAMBA would not be my first choice. If you plan to discontinue AFP that is too bad. Hopefully I can get this working, at least long enough to get my data off it.

Sorry, I should clarify. I have some legacy devices that cannot be upgraded but I still use that don’t work well with SMB. The reason I went with Rockstor was to help extend the functionality of theses devices a couple more years.

BTW. Thank you very much for you help and suggestions. It is very much appreciated. I was able to shut down and bring it back up. I started another scrub and let it run while I was gone this weekend. Came back to the same error, shut it down and brought it back up. Said scrub had finished, 28 errors had been detected on one drive, Configured for RAID 6.

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