#5906·lazygit

Repeatedly hitting index.lock failures

Author: edhgooseCreated Aug 7, 2026Updated Sep 13, 2026
Labelsbug
### Describe the bug I am operating in a very large repo, and frequently hit problems where I can't check out a branch without getting the below error: > fatal: Unable to create '/.git/index.lock': File exists. > Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale. ### To Reproduce I'm not sure how to reproduce directly, but for me it's as simple as switching branches will trigger it most of the time. ### Expected behavior I'd expect to rarely/never hit this index.lock problem. ### Version info: > commit=, build date=, build source=Homebrew, version=0.64.0, os=darwin, arch=arm64, git version=2.55.0 Was also occurring on last two releases as well. I wonder if this is related: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/pull/5788? ### Terminal info: iTerm 2: version 3.6.11 ### Additional context I'm running Goland at the same time, but I'm not using their Git features explicitly. I don't see anything that suggests it's Goland trying to read the git index. I've tried to check what commands are holding the lock. I see `git status --untracked-files=all --porcelain -z --find-renames=50%` comes up a bit, and the parent is lazygit. I tried running this manually to see how long it takes and got: > 0.35s user 2.37s system 79% cpu 3.441 total On avg it was somewhere between 2-4 seconds for this repo. I see the following logs: Logs

Aug 7 18:50:47 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git log --graph --color=always --abbrev-commit --decorate --date=relative --pretty=medium refs/heads/master --" Aug 7 18:50:47 |INFO| postRefreshUpdate for localBranches took 253.042µs Aug 7 18:50:47 |ERRO| read |0: file already closed Aug 7 18:50:48 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git log --graph --color=always --abbrev-commit --decorate --date=relative --pretty=medium refs/heads/my-new-branch --" Aug 7 18:50:48 |ERRO| read |0: file already closed Aug 7 18:50:48 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:48 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:48 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 101.912041ms, cpu 35.673ms) Aug 7 18:50:48 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 20ms Aug 7 18:50:48 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:48 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:48 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 108.728791ms, cpu 30.895ms) Aug 7 18:50:48 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 40ms Aug 7 18:50:48 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:48 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:48 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 111.455459ms, cpu 33.685ms) Aug 7 18:50:48 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 80ms Aug 7 18:50:48 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:49 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:49 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 102.784125ms, cpu 34.459ms) Aug 7 18:50:49 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 160ms Aug 7 18:50:49 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:49 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:49 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 109.252791ms, cpu 32.028ms) Aug 7 18:50:49 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 320ms Aug 7 18:50:49 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:49 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:49 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 106.687583ms, cpu 34.246ms) Aug 7 18:50:49 |WARN| lock error prevented command from running; retrying in 640ms Aug 7 18:50:50 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git checkout my-new-branch" Aug 7 18:50:50 |ERRO| fatal: Unable to create '/MyDirectory/.git/index.lock': File exists. Another git process seems to be running in this repository, or the lock file may be stale Aug 7 18:50:50 |INFO| git checkout my-new-branch (wall 107.590709ms, cpu 35.349ms) Aug 7 18:50:50 |INFO| refreshing all scopes (async) Aug 7 18:50:50 |DEBU| RunCommand command="git for-each-ref \"--format=%(objectname) %(refname)\" refs/heads" Aug 7 18:50:50 |INFO| git for-each-ref "--format=%(objectname) %(refname)" refs/heads (wall 33.102333ms, cpu 5.835ms) Aug 7 18:50:50 |INFO| RefsSnapshot took 33.274375ms Aug 7 18:50:50 |INFO| refreshed merge conflicts in 40.125µs