file table is full on macos

ah, the mac which "just works".

this happens now when I try to preview a directory full of images from one of my surveillance cameras, of about 2900 in this case.

looks like something is using too many files.  I'm going to try rebooting and not starting everything and see what happens.

this message comes out of the console log in my case.

here is a google group discussion with a message with some sysctl command suggestions.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.comp.sys.mac/Qw7QxZGXGak

> Third time now. Machine hasn't been touched in almost a week, I come
> back and find it has hung - hard power off, then after reboot i find
> the kernel log full of 'file table is full'.
>

> Any ideas how to go about tracing this?

This limit is controllable using sysctl. To see the current values:
sysctl kern.maxfiles kern.maxfilesperproc
Mine says 12288 and 10240. OS X *used* to read in definitions when it
booted from /etc/sysctl.conf, but you can change those values on the
fly.
Why you're running out is more of a mystery. I suppose you could run
lsof regularly over a period and see what changes.