error running lsof

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error running lsof

I'm running OS X 10.4.6 on a 17" iMac core duo machine. Whenever I run lsof in the terminal I get this error:
lsof: can't get vnode information (No such file or directory)

Anyone know what might be causing this?

17" iMac core duo, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Apr 30, 2006 10:51 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 30, 2006 11:32 AM in response to Epyon9283

What does the command line that your using look like?

Is there a specific file/directory that your trying to get information about?

Andy

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Answer 2

Epyon9283 Author

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Apr 30, 2006 11:43 AM in response to Nils C. Anderson

iMac:~ tom$ lsof
lsof: can't get vnode information (No such file or directory)

is that what you mean? Happens running as root too. Also happens using any command line options (lsof -i 4 for example).

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Answer 3

Apr 30, 2006 12:01 PM in response to Epyon9283

I suggest that you verify the permission of the files on the system.
one of them probably isn't set correctly, and is too restrictive.
Try using Disk Utility, select the filesystem. and then choose
"Verify Disk Permissions"

you could run the following 2 command and after
looking over a lot of information you should be able
to identify which one it's complaining about. My guess
is /dev/null (should be 666).
sudo ktrace lsof
sudo kdump -f ktrace.out | more

Andy

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Answer 4

Epyon9283 Author

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Apr 30, 2006 12:26 PM in response to Nils C. Anderson

Tried repairing permissions. Didn't have any effect. permissions on /dev/null look fine.

Having never used ktrace or kdump I'm really not sure what I'm looking for here. I saw where the error occurs but I can't see which file it is trying to find.

3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0xb,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0xc,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0xd,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0xe,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0xf,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0x10,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0x11,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0x12,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 1152/0x480
3945 lsof CALL #336(0x3,0xbd,0x2,0x13,0xbfffe710,0x480)
3945 lsof RET #336 -1 errno 2 No such file or directory
3945 lsof CALL write(0x2,0xbfffe060,0x3e)
3945 lsof GIO fd 2 wrote 62 bytes
"lsof: can't get vnode information (No such file or directory)

There are a ton of those RET and CALL lines above the error.

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Answer 5

Apr 30, 2006 3:16 PM in response to Epyon9283

well that did work out too well. it's usually a bit more informative.
it's making a system call, that appears to be proc_info.

did the lsof command work previously?

Any recent changes to this system? software wise.

Andy

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Answer 6

Epyon9283 Author

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Apr 30, 2006 4:25 PM in response to Nils C. Anderson

I'm not sure if it ever worked. I tried it last week and had the same error.

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Answer 7

Apr 30, 2006 8:59 PM in response to Epyon9283

lsof does not appear to work on intel macs at this time.

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Answer 8

May 12, 2006 12:22 PM in response to Daniel Macks

Are you sure? Do you have a source for that?

I'm somewhat sure that I used lsof just a few weeks ago, and this on my MacBook Pro.

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Answer 9

May 12, 2006 6:24 PM in response to Joachim Bengtsson1

Hi Joachim,
When Daniel post that news I checked on an iMac at work and sure enough lsof was broken. However, I installed Security Update 2006-003 this afternoon and now lsof works on that machine. Sorry I don't have a reference.
--
Gary
~~~~
The first version always gets thrown away.

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Answer 10

Epyon9283 Author

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May 12, 2006 6:28 PM in response to Gary Kerbaugh

cool. seems to be working here too now.

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Answer 11

Jun 12, 2006 12:23 PM in response to Gary Kerbaugh

I installed that update and lsof worked for a couple minutes as a regular user, not root. Now it doesn't work at all. Disk permissions have been verified with no errors several times. It would be helpful if syscall 336 would show the arguments in ktrace. It appears to be a problem with one file as it runs for a fair amount of time before terminating with the error message.

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Answer 12

Epyon9283 Author

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Jun 12, 2006 3:40 PM in response to Doug Hardie

Its working here still but only intermittently.

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Answer 13

Jun 12, 2006 6:58 PM in response to Gary Kerbaugh

I upgraded to XCode 2.3 and things have changed. I still get the same error with lsof, but ktrace of it fails. Kdump says the record is incorrect length and tends to put out garbage. Frequently lsof becomes GGof etc. It also doesn't get to the end of the trace.

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