Jenkins "remote file operation failed" Agent Error

By Kaveh Alemi·Latchkey

A file operation the controller asked the agent to perform (read, copy, archive, stash) failed on the remote workspace, frequently because the channel dropped.

What this error means

A step like archiveArtifacts, stash, or checkout fails with "remote file operation failed: WORKSPACE at hudson.remoting.Channel".

hudson.util.IOException2: remote file operation failed: /home/jenkins/workspace/app
at hudson.remoting.Channel@1a2b: Agent
Caused by: hudson.remoting.ChannelClosedException

Common causes

Channel dropped mid-operation

The agent disconnected while the file operation was in flight.

Disk or permission problem

The workspace path is full, read-only, or owned by another user.

Agent reclaimed

A cloud agent was terminated while a file transfer was running.

How to fix it

Check agent health and disk

1. Inspect the agent for disk space and permission issues on the workspace.
2. Reconnect or replace an unhealthy agent.

df -h /home/jenkins/workspace

Retry the affected step

1. Wrap the file operation in retry so a transient channel drop re-runs it.

How to prevent it

• If you run on GitHub Actions, self-healing managed runners such as Latchkey auto-retry transient failures, so an interrupted file operation does not fail the job. On Jenkins, monitor agent disk and connection stability.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• GitHub Actions documentation