What causes "No permission to signal pid ${pid}. Try: kill ${pid}" in rohitg00/agentmemory?

Run the same kill command with sudo: `sudo kill `

EPERM

EPERM

Error message

No permission to signal pid ${pid}. Try: kill ${pid}

What it means

Warning from the stop/kill routine when process.kill(pid, signal) fails with EPERM — the OS refused to signal the target process because the current user lacks permission. The engine is NOT stopped by this attempt.

Source

Thrown at src/cli.ts:3265

    }
    return true;
  } catch (err) {
    return (err as NodeJS.ErrnoException)?.code === "EPERM";
  }
}

async function signalAndWait(
  pid: number,
  initialSignal: NodeJS.Signals,
  timeoutMs: number,
): Promise<boolean> {
  try {
    process.kill(pid, initialSignal);
  } catch (err) {
    const code = (err as NodeJS.ErrnoException)?.code;
    if (code === "ESRCH") return true;
    if (code === "EPERM") {
      p.log.warn(`No permission to signal pid ${pid}. Try: kill ${pid}`);
      return false;
    }
    vlog(`${initialSignal} ${pid}: ${err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err)}`);
    return false;
  }
  const deadline = Date.now() + timeoutMs;
  while (Date.now() < deadline) {
    if (!pidAlive(pid)) return true;
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 200));
  }
  if (!pidAlive(pid)) return true;
  try {
    process.kill(pid, "SIGKILL");
  } catch (err) {
    if ((err as NodeJS.ErrnoException)?.code === "ESRCH") return true;
    vlog(`SIGKILL ${pid}: ${err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err)}`);
    return false;
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to e04ba88819)

Solutions

Run the same kill command with sudo: `sudo kill <pid>`
Stop the process as the user who started it (log in as that user and stop the engine)
If it is a stale foreign pidfile, remove ~/.agentmemory/iii.pid after confirming the process is not yours

Example fix

// before
$ agentmemory stop
warn: No permission to signal pid 4321. Try: kill 4321
// after
$ sudo kill 4321

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

const os = require("os");
function canSignal(pid) { try { process.kill(pid, 0); return true; } catch (e) { return e.code === "EPERM" ? "eprem" : false; } }

Type guard

function isEperm(e: unknown): e is NodeJS.ErrnoException { return (e as NodeJS.ErrnoException)?.code === "EPERM"; }

Try / catch

try { process.kill(pid, signal); } catch (err) {
  if ((err as NodeJS.ErrnoException)?.code === "EPERM") {
    console.warn(`Permission denied for pid ${pid}; retry with sudo kill ${pid}`);
  }
}

Prevention

Run the engine as the same user that later stops it
Avoid starting the daemon with sudo
Check pid ownership (ps -o user -p <pid>) before killing

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the stop command where the recorded/listed pid belongs to a process owned by another user (e.g. a daemon started by root or another account).

Common situations: Engine previously started with sudo, mixed-user installs, containers where the pid is owned by a different uid, shared dev servers.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of rohitg00/agentmemory@e04ba88819 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aae7e437867a33e4. Report an issue: GitHub.