[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 3"""
 date="2015-09-22T16:25:15Z"
 content="""
Ok, that seems clear enough, and there's only 1 place where git-annex
copies .git/index; in `mergeDirect`. Indeed, if .git/index doesn't exist
yet when that is called, it'll crash. And, a freshly created git repo
starts off without a .git/index until changes start to be staged.

However, I can't reproduce the crash with a current version of git-annex,
and this bug report is about a version nearly a year old now. AFAICS,
the sync (or the assistant) will make a commit before merging, and that
commit results in the index file being created, as a side effect.
Also, I can't see anything that VFAT could have to do with this.

Hmm, I did manage to reproduce the crash using the new --no-commit flag to
git-annex sync. Will fix on that basis.
"""]]