cloudflare/cloudflared · error

failed to look up own process: %w

Error message

failed to look up own process: %w

What it means

Failure in newSelfLockContent: the process package could not look up the current process (by os.Getpid) while building lock-file metadata for the token lock. Without the PID the lock file cannot record its owner, so lock acquisition fails rather than writing an unidentifiable lock.

Source

Thrown at token/token.go:252

	content, err = newSelfLockContent()
	if err != nil {
		return lockContent{}, err
	}

	if err := json.NewEncoder(f).Encode(content); err != nil {
		return lockContent{}, err
	}

	return content, nil
}

// newSelfLockContent returns a lockContent describing the current process.
func newSelfLockContent() (lockContent, error) {
	pid := int32(os.Getpid()) // nolint: gosec
	p, err := process.NewProcess(pid)
	if err != nil {
		return lockContent{}, fmt.Errorf("failed to look up own process: %w", err)
	}
	ct, err := p.CreateTime()
	if err != nil {
		return lockContent{}, fmt.Errorf("failed to get own start time: %w", err)
	}
	id, err := newLockID()
	if err != nil {
		return lockContent{}, err
	}
	return lockContent{PID: pid, StartTime: ct, ID: id}, nil
}

func newLockID() (string, error) {
	var b [16]byte
	if _, err := rand.Read(b[:]); err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to generate lock ID: %w", err)
	}
	return hex.EncodeToString(b[:]), nil

View on GitHub (pinned to 2253eeeb25)

Solutions

1. Retry — this is typically a transient OS-level lookup failure.
2. Check that /proc is mounted and accessible (Linux) since the gopsutil read depends on it.
3. Report a bug if it persists; the current process should always be findable.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at token/token.go:252 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of cloudflare/cloudflared@2253eeeb25 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/39561de251d08d5f. Report an issue: GitHub.