[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="http://joeyh.name/"
 ip="209.250.56.102"
 subject="moreinfo"
 date="2014-03-19T20:49:47Z"
 content="""
What I don't understand about this is, how does `open` fail due to a file being locked? This is Linux, it doesn't have mandatory locking that I know of, and git-annex certianly doesn't use such a thing.

I really need a way to reproduce this and/or a strace. As it is, I've never seen this reported by anyone else and don't understand the failure mode at all.

The relevant part of the code seems to be here:

[[!format haskell \"\"\"
setJournalFile :: JournalLocked -> FilePath -> String -> Annex ()
setJournalFile _jl file content = do
        tmp <- fromRepo gitAnnexTmpMiscDir
        createAnnexDirectory =<< fromRepo gitAnnexJournalDir
        createAnnexDirectory tmp
        -- journal file is written atomically
        jfile <- fromRepo $ journalFile file
        let tmpfile = tmp </> takeFileName jfile
        liftIO $ do
                writeBinaryFile tmpfile content
                moveFile tmpfile jfile
\"\"\"]]

While there is some ctnl locking going on, it locks a special sentinal file, not the file it's writing to.
"""]]