ESTALE (errno 116)

errno 116

LINUX

Stale file handle

Linux terminal running strace with the failing system call and errno highlighted
Linux errno: trace the exact failing system call before changing anything.

What it means

ESTALE is a Linux error code reported by Linux and other POSIX systems. Its official message is: “Stale file handle”

How to fix ESTALE (errno 116)

  1. Reproduce with 'strace -f -e trace=<syscall> <cmd>' to see the exact failing call
  2. Confirm the errno with 'perror <code>' and correlate with 'dmesg' kernel messages
  3. Isolate the version — re-test on a clean shell or minimal container

Related errors

EHOSTUNREACH (errno 113)ECONNREFUSED (errno 111)ETIMEDOUT (errno 110)EPERM (errno 1)ENOENT (errno 2)EIO (errno 5)EAGAIN (errno 11)ENOMEM (errno 12)

Source: Linux kernel errno.h

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