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Can't Acquire Lock for App

Austin Lowery
  • Updated

Symptoms

A NodeJS application on a CloudLinux server cannot be started and NodeJS Selector displays the following error.

Can't acquire lock for app:

 

Description

Daemonized apps or apps that run as services should not be started via the UI, as there is no interface to stop them. The running app can be terminated from the command line.

Please note that daemonized apps, long-running apps, and apps run as services should be started via the command line. 

 

Workaround

  1. Access the server's command line as the 'root' user via SSH or "Terminal" in WHM.
  2. Use the lsof command to locate the process with the lock. 
    lsof -u $cpusername|grep lock
    Please note that "$cpusername" must be replaced with the cPanel user's username.
  3. Stop the process. 
    kill -15 $pid
    Please note that "$pid" must be replaced with the process ID found in the previous command.

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