Getting error while opening /etc/profile: Error reading lock file /etc/.profile.swp: Not enough data read

Question

I am getting this error while opening /etc/profile file using nano.

Error reading lock file /etc/.profile.swp: Not enough data read

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Try to remove the hidden file .[yourfilename].swp, which is stored in the same folder as the file that you are trying to open.
In your case try the shell command rm /etc/.profile.swp.

This issue also occurs with nano 2.7.4, and must be something to do with how nano handles a corrupted swapfile.

Hope this helped

Answer 2

The problem is linked to a bug in an older version of nano as seen here.

As per the report, the affected version was nano-2.4.2. You should run nano --version to ascertain your current version and update accordingly.

A more detailed report of the actual issue can be found here.

Answer 3

Was happening for me because I was out of disk space, I cleared up some space, deleted the swap file and it worked.

Answer 4

Please try this one (run this on the current folder):

find . -name "*.swp" -delete

Keep in mind that as @pbhj commented:

[...] this will find all files below the current root, ending in .swp, and delete them. Which should work to remove temporary nano files, but might have unintended consequences.

Answer 5

This happened for me because of a log file that wasn't rotating, it took the entire disk space, I solved it by truncating this log file, then removing the .swp file.

Answer 6

For me this was because of running docker container logs. Worked fine after deleting them. Logs location: /var/lib/docker/containers/ rm -rf /var/lib/docker/containers/*

Note: this will delete all the log generated till today, you may choose to deleted not required and also take backup to avoid logs data loss.