twice running cron.php / GenerateMetadataJob

Due to problems with the endlessly running cron.php, I identified the issue by finding the "long running job." By obtaining the start time of the PID from ps and searching the logs, I discovered that the issue lies with the "GenerateMetadataJob," which is hanging. This job starts but never receives a "Finished" event:

{"reqId":"T7WSKkyswz0F035LClQ6","level":0,"time":"2024-01-27T10:00:03+00:00","remoteAddr":"","user":"--","app":"cron","method":"","url":"--","message":"Run OC\Core\BackgroundJobs\GenerateMetadataJob job with ID 36764","userAgent":"--","version":"28.0.1.1","data":{"app":"cron"}}

Additionally, the job is running twice or more:

[picard@borgcube ~]$ ps aux | grep -E "^http.*?cron.php$"
http     1944203 97.1  0.0 428316  4072 ?        R    Jan27 2821:33 php -f /srv/http/nextcloud/cron.php
http     1999635 96.8  0.2 428316 23768 ?        R    Jan28 1414:10 php -f /srv/http/nextcloud/cron.php
http     2055241 98.2  0.9 428316 75584 ?        R    11:05  19:55 php -f /srv/http/nextcloud/cron.php

[picard@borgcube ~]$ ps -p 1944203 -o lstart
                 STARTED
 Sat Jan 27 11:00:01 2024
[picard@borgcube ~]$ ps -p 1999635 -o lstart
                 STARTED
 Sun Jan 28 11:05:01 2024
[picard@borgcube ~]$ ps -p 2055241 -o lstart
                 STARTED
 Mon Jan 29 11:05:01 2024

I'm not sure why this is happening, but I have an idea that it might be related to symlinks and/or multiple mounted devices.

Additionally, while investigating this issue, I read some code and would like to recommend changing the "funny if/else construct" for checking "onlyTimeSensitive" at line 122ff in cron.php with this single line:

$onlyTimeSensitive = ($currentHour >= $startHour) == ($currentHour > $endHour);

Thanks a lot!

Start with cron.php and the OC\Core\BackgroundJobs\GenerateMetadataJob entry shown in the issue. Compare the process start times from ps with the cron logs, focusing on why the job starts without a Finished event and why multiple cron.php processes remain active. The suggested onlyTimeSensitive expression is also located around line 122, but the issue does not define an accepted fix or test.