microsoft / microsoft/VFSForGit

GVFS lock stalls indefinitely

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affects: performance affects: reliability type: bug
Dominant language
C#
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

When there are files/directories with long paths in the GVFS root folder, gvfs gets locked (git commands gets stuck with console message - Waiting for GVFS to release the lock …).

gvfs mount logs show multiple lines of PathTooLongExceptions, causing GVFS’s background operations to repeatedly fail, which is why it’s never releasing its lock. The specific error is:
System.IO.PathTooLongException: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters

GVFS repository gets locked up, because the background queue gets clogged with multiple file IO operations that it needs to catch up to, the vast majority of which are under the long path folder.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the lock with long paths in the GVFS root and inspect the gvfs mount logs for repeated PathTooLongExceptions. Trace how the background queue handles these file I/O failures and verify that git commands no longer remain stuck waiting for GVFS to release its lock.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp, git
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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