possible EventEmitter memory leak detected

This is explained in the node eventEmitter documentation

What version of Node is this? What other code do you have? That isn't normal behavior.

In short, its: process.setMaxListeners(0);

Also see: node.js - request - How to “emitter.setMaxListeners()”?


I'd like to point out here that that warning is there for a reason and there's a good chance the right fix is not increasing the limit but figuring out why you're adding so many listeners to the same event. Only increase the limit if you know why so many listeners are being added and are confident it's what you really want.

I found this page because I got this warning and in my case there was a bug in some code I was using that was turning the global object into an EventEmitter! I'd certainly advise against increasing the limit globally because you don't want these things to go unnoticed.


The accepted answer provides the semantics on how to increase the limit, but as @voltrevo pointed out that warning is there for a reason and your code probably has a bug.

Consider the following buggy code:

//Assume Logger is a module that emits errors
var Logger = require('./Logger.js');

for (var i = 0; i < 11; i++) {
    //BUG: This will cause the warning
    //As the event listener is added in a loop
    Logger.on('error', function (err) {
        console.log('error writing log: ' + err)
    });

    Logger.writeLog('Hello');
}

Now observe the correct way of adding the listener:

//Good: event listener is not in a loop
Logger.on('error', function (err) {
    console.log('error writing log: ' + err)
});

for (var i = 0; i < 11; i++) {
    Logger.writeLog('Hello');
}

Search for similar issues in your code before changing the maxListeners (which is explained in other answers)