Table open cache too small

The Table Open Cache (table_open_cache or old name table_cache) is a cache to store file handles for all threads. The actual value of cache entries can be seen with the global status of open tables (Open_tables).
Increasing table_open_cache increases the number of file descriptors (open_files_limit) that MySQL requires.
You can check whether you need to increase the Table Open Cache by checking Open_tables and Opened_tables. If the value of Opened_tables is large and you do not use FLUSH TABLES often (which just forces all tables to be closed and reopened), then you should increase the value of the table_open_cache variable.

For further information consult MariaDB and MySQL documentation or the following article.