"Too many open files" in version 5.12.0 Windows build

When working on a project with 35 audio files and the same number of audio tracks (working with stem files) I am getting a repeated “too many open files” error and must quit ardour without saving the session.

That is unusual.

Some excerpts from a Mixbus (Ardour derivative) forum thread on this issue:

Keep in mind that the Windows limitation is a system-wide limit (not a limit per app). So it might not even be Mixbus (Ardour) which has opened too many files. If there’s some other “file hungry” app running, that will also affect MB’s (Ardour’s) performance on Windows.

In rare cases it can be due to

  • big sessions with thousands of individual audio files
  • plugins that open sample-libraries with many files, and keep them open
  • plugins that have hundreds or thousands of presets

The windows default is 2048 open files. Maybe dropbox or some browser’s cache,…

Source: http://mixbus.harrisonconsoles.com/forum/thread-6366-page-2.html

Whatever it is, I can make a project in another DAW (Tracktion Waveform 9) with the same stem files, throw a large number of plug-ins into the mix, and get no such errors–I was trying to use Ardour because Waveform 9 crashes on certain VST plug-ins that seem to work just fine in Ardour. In other words, I would think I’d see the error while running the other DAW if it were audio file count and/or plug-ins.

I’ll try and run from cmd.exe as the OP in this thread you linked to was instructed to do. Also, note that he worked around the problem without changing his system.