BrokenPipeError: [Errno 32] Broken pipe
write EPIPE
IOError: [Errno 32] Broken pipe

You’re writing data to a pipe or socket, but the other end already closed. The reader is gone.

Fix 1: Piped Output Closed Early

# ❌ head closes after 10 lines, but your script keeps writing
python3 generate_data.py | head -10

# ✅ Handle SIGPIPE in Python
import signal
signal.signal(signal.SIGPIPE, signal.SIG_DFL)

Fix 2: Client Disconnected Mid-Response

# ❌ Flask/Django — client closed browser mid-download
@app.route('/big-file')
def download():
    return send_file('huge.csv')

# ✅ Catch the error
@app.route('/big-file')
def download():
    try:
        return send_file('huge.csv')
    except BrokenPipeError:
        pass  # Client left, nothing to do

Fix 3: Writing to a Closed Socket

# ❌ Server closed the connection
sock.sendall(data)  # 💥 Broken pipe

# ✅ Check connection before writing
try:
    sock.sendall(data)
except BrokenPipeError:
    print("Connection closed by remote host")
    sock.close()

Fix 4: Node.js EPIPE

// ❌ Writing to a stream that ended
response.write(data);  // 💥 EPIPE if client disconnected

// ✅ Check if writable
if (!response.writableEnded) {
    response.write(data);
}

// Or handle the error
response.on('error', (err) => {
    if (err.code === 'EPIPE') return;  // Client left
    throw err;
});

Fix 5: SSH/SCP Broken Pipe

# ❌ SSH connection drops during long operations
# ✅ Keep the connection alive
ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=60 -o ServerAliveCountMax=3 user@host

# Or in ~/.ssh/config
Host *
    ServerAliveInterval 60
    ServerAliveCountMax 3

Fix 6: Docker Logs Broken Pipe

# ❌ Piping docker logs to head/grep
docker logs container | head -100  # 💥 Broken pipe

# ✅ Use --tail instead
docker logs --tail 100 container

Related resources

• SSH connection timed out fix
• ECONNRESET / Connection reset fix
• Linux too many open files fix