nodejs/node · error

fclose failed [%s]: %s\n

Error message

fclose failed [%s]: %s\n

What it means

`fclose` on the output file (`context->fout`) returned non-zero. This typically signals that buffered data could not be flushed to disk — the most serious variant because it means the output may be incomplete or corrupt. The message shows the output path and errno string.

Source

Thrown at deps/brotli/c/tools/brotli.c:1033

  }
}

static BROTLI_BOOL OpenFiles(Context* context) {
  BROTLI_BOOL is_ok = OpenInputFile(context->current_input_path, &context->fin);
  if (!context->test_integrity && is_ok) {
    is_ok = OpenOutputFile(
        context->current_output_path, &context->fout, context->force_overwrite);
  }
  return is_ok;
}

static BROTLI_BOOL CloseFiles(Context* context, BROTLI_BOOL rm_input,
                              BROTLI_BOOL rm_output) {
  BROTLI_BOOL is_ok = BROTLI_TRUE;
  if (!context->test_integrity && context->fout) {
    if (fclose(context->fout) != 0) {
      if (is_ok) {
        fprintf(stderr, "fclose failed [%s]: %s\n",
                PrintablePath(context->current_output_path), strerror(errno));
      }
      is_ok = BROTLI_FALSE;
    }
    if (rm_output && context->current_output_path) {
      unlink(context->current_output_path);
    }

    /* TOCTOU violation, but otherwise it is impossible to set file times. */
    if (!rm_output && is_ok && context->copy_stat) {
      CopyStat(context->current_input_path, context->current_output_path);
    }
  }

  if (context->fin) {
    if (fclose(context->fin) != 0) {
      if (is_ok) {
        fprintf(stderr, "fclose failed [%s]: %s\n",

View on GitHub (pinned to 1b2de5e052)

Solutions

1. Check available disk space: `df -h <output_dir>`.
2. If piping to another process, ensure the consumer reads all input before exiting.
3. Check user disk quotas: `quota -s`.
4. For NFS, verify the mount is healthy and the server is reachable.
5. Re-run the compression after freeing space; the input is preserved unless `--rm` was used.

#include <sys/statvfs.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

bool output_has_space(const char *path, unsigned long long min_bytes) {
    struct statvfs vfs;
    if (statvfs(path, &vfs) != 0) return true; // can't check, proceed
    unsigned long long avail = (unsigned long long)vfs.f_bavail * vfs.f_bsize;
    return avail > min_bytes;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Disk full (ENOSPC) detected only at flush/close time; write to a broken pipe (EPIPE) if output goes to another process that exited; NFS write commit failure; removable media pulled during write; quota exceeded.

Common situations: Compressing to a nearly-full disk; piping brotli output to `head` or another command that exits early; network filesystem with delayed write errors; user quota limits.

Related errors

• failed to write output [%s]: %s\n
• failed to open input file [%s]: %s\n
• failed to open output file [%s]: %s\n
• failed to open dictionary file [%s]: %s\n
• could not get size of dictionary file [%s]

AI-assisted analysis of nodejs/node@1b2de5e052 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e97b848547bf4206. Report an issue: GitHub.