EC
1589
MySQLWARNINGNotableBinary LogHIGH confidence

Too many open files during binary log purge

Production Risk

Medium — binary log purge may be incomplete, leading to disk space not being reclaimed.

What this means

The operating system reported too many open files while MySQL was trying to purge binary log files.

Why it happens
  1. 1The system open file limit (ulimit -n) is too low for the number of binary log files being purged.
  2. 2Many concurrent connections combined with binary log purge operations exhausted file descriptors.
How to reproduce
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
PURGE BINARY LOGS BEFORE DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 1 DAY);

expected output

Warning 1589: file purge encountered an error

Fix 1

Increase the open files limit

Increase the open files limit
-- In /etc/security/limits.conf:
mysql soft nofile 65536
mysql hard nofile 65536

Why this works

Increasing the OS-level file descriptor limit prevents exhaustion during binary log operations.

Fix 2

Purge logs in smaller batches

Purge logs in smaller batches
PURGE BINARY LOGS BEFORE DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 30 DAY);
-- Then gradually reduce the interval

Why this works

Purging fewer logs at once reduces the peak number of simultaneously open file handles.

Sources
Official documentation ↗

MySQL 8.0 — 1589 ER_BINLOG_PURGE_EMFILE

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