Fixing rtorrent: Could not lock session directory

30 thoughts on “Fixing rtorrent: Could not lock session directory”

1. shell.person June 26, 2010

   Thanks, worked perfectly.
2. tymbarq October 26, 2010

   Thanks 🙂
3. Kartun November 7, 2010

   Tnx mate, saved me couple of mins on research 🙂
4. Gary November 21, 2010

   Worked like a charm. THANK YOU!!
5. Nick November 24, 2010

   Thanks, works great!
6. Jason January 23, 2011

   Thank you!!
7. Ghostface January 24, 2011

   thx !
8. nyota March 20, 2011

   thaks, m8
9. aus April 23, 2011

   Thanks! Had some power outages too.
10. FullProof May 10, 2011

    I read a bunch of complicated solutions before getting to this one. First to actually work, and it did so perfectly!
11. T May 22, 2011

    Thanks!!
12. ziobro July 25, 2011

    thanks
13. Miguel July 29, 2011

    Thanks! I wonder if there’s a way to detect and delete “stale” lock files in this case.
14. BobbyBooey September 12, 2011

    Thanks!! And now I know where all the cool command line kids hang out!! 😉
15. Pieter September 16, 2011

    Thanks! That worked for me! 😀
16. kofran February 12, 2012

    thanks!
17. xelemenalx August 8, 2012

    thanks! worked like a charm
18. joe January 4, 2013

    run this command at startup
    rm “/home/jb/Downloads/torrent/.session/*.lock”

    or (to load rtorrent as well) run this command at startup
    rm “/home/jb/Downloads/torrent/.session/*.lock” ;rtorrent

    or (to load rtorrent in background) run this command at startup
    rm “/home/jb/Downloads/torrent/.session/*.lock” ;screen -d -m -S rtorrent rtorrent
19. pc-nishiya March 5, 2013

    Thanks Very Mush ! !
20. Rachele Grasshopper July 13, 2013

    Thanks.
    The issue seems to be caused when rtorrent is shut down after a connection loss
21. andy August 7, 2013

    Thanks!
22. Ryukia October 22, 2013

    After removing the .lock file I still couldn’t start rtorrent and got the different message “couldn’t lock directory .session”. Turned out I couldn’t start rtorrent while I was still in the .session directory. After switching to ~home I could start rtorrent normaly.
23. Keith Slater Post authorNovember 12, 2013

    Ryukia, that makes no sense but I’m glad you got it working.
24. Allan October 9, 2015

    2015 and this post still helpfull.
    Thank you. ^_^
25. Keith Slater Post authorOctober 10, 2015

    Yep, I ran into this exact issue a few weeks ago and referred back to here to remember what I did to fix it.
26. Davrel January 2, 2017

    Thank you
27. Tv April 20, 2018

    I love you
28. Roman April 12, 2019

    Thanks man! Added this line to systemd daemon. Works like a charm 🙂
29. just some guy January 14, 2023

    I’m having this issue, but I don’t have any files in the session directory. I’m trying to run rTorrent in a podman container, with the session directory being mounted in the host system. I have no idea why the permissions aren’t working since the owner is 1000:1000 (the user that runs the rTorrent binary in the container, and also the host system’s user). The permissions are drwxr-xr-x. I have also mounted the volume with the “z” option, so in my understanding it should automatically use the proper SELinux context as well. I wish there was a way to get a more detailed error message on why exactly the permissions don’t work.
30. just some guy January 14, 2023

    Well, I fixed it. Apparently rTorrent does not like if the directory already exists by the time it is launched. I removed the mount from my compose file and it works now.