Failed to read PID smaps during cPanel nightly update maintenance

Symptoms

After a nightly run of the cPanel upcp cron, you receive emails with warnings similar to:

CONFIG_TEXT: [2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] STDERR: Failed to read PID 1843109's smaps.
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] Failed to read PID 1845721's smaps.
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/proc/1845734/stat'
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] Cpanel::Exception::ProcessFailed::Error/(XID tvaqhs) “/usr/bin/needs-restarting” reported error code “1” when it ended: Failed to read PID 1843109's smaps.
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] Failed to read PID 1845721's smaps.
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/proc/1845734/stat'
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]  at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/ChildErrorStringifier.pm line 161.
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Cpanel::ChildErrorStringifier::to_exception(Cpanel::SafeRun::Object=HASH(0x298e520)) called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/SafeRun/Object.pm line 696
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Cpanel::SafeRun::Object::to_exception(Cpanel::SafeRun::Object=HASH(0x298e520)) called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/ChildErrorStringifier.pm line 140
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Cpanel::ChildErrorStringifier::die_if_error(Cpanel::SafeRun::Object=HASH(0x298e520)) called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/ProcessCheck/Outdated.pm line 297
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Cpanel::ProcessCheck::Outdated::_outdated_services_default() called at /usr/local/cpanel/Cpanel/ProcessCheck/Outdated.pm line 85
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Cpanel::ProcessCheck::Outdated::outdated_services() called at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services line 88
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     scripts::find_outdated_services::__ANON__() called at /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/perl/542/cpanel-lib/Try/Tiny.pm line 100
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     eval {...} called at /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/perl/542/cpanel-lib/Try/Tiny.pm line 91
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     Try::Tiny::try(CODE(0x21f3f10), Try::Tiny::Catch=REF(0x1cdc200)) called at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services line 119
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services]     scripts::find_outdated_services::run(scripts::find_outdated_services=HASH(0x1cb1248)) called at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services line 73
[2026-03-12 00:39:31 -0400] E    [/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services] The “/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_outdated_services --auto” command (process 1845729) reported error number 255 when it ended.
[2026-03-12 00:39:46 -0400] E Pre Maintenance ended, however it did not exit cleanly (256). The following events were logged: "scripts/find_outdated_services". Please check the logs for an indication of what happened

Cause

The nightly upcp cron job runs Security Advisor, the /usr/bin/needs-restarting script is called, but errors during the process:

CONFIG_TEXT: Failed to read PID 1845721's smaps.

We've opened an internal case for our development team to investigate this further. For reference, the case number is CPANEL-52003. Follow this article to receive an email notification when a solution is published in the product. 

Resolution

There is no workaround at this time, and the message can be safely ignored.