Can not kill process with kill -9 [duplicate]

Solution 1:

If the process is in [defunct] state possible reason could be that it waits one of his child processes to complete. If this is handwrited script try to observe what child processes he calls and check if there are some hanging.

Solution 2:

If a process is not terminated after a kill -9 the reason is that it is stuck in an uninterruptible sleep in kernel code. This is mostly related to I/O problems. Either the sleep ends (I/O ends or fails or times out, etc.) and then the process will be cleaned up, or you'll have to reboot the machine.

Solution 3:

If you send signal number 9 (sigKILL) to right PID and process will not end, there is only one possible solution. Restart machine.

Common mistake is sending sigKILL to wrong proces number PID, so check it twicely before hit enter.