For what it’s worth I’ve tried to replicate this on NFS to no avail, but it’s not like the mount I was using was under much load. 

Maybe so, but it's really not a good experience for GHC/Cabal users.   If aptget did this, people would bleat loudly.

Simon

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Ara Adkins [mailto:me@ara.io]
| Sent: 19 August 2017 00:07
| To: Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj@microsoft.com>
| Cc: Ben Gamari <ben@smart-cactus.org>; ghc-devs <ghc-devs@haskell.org>
| Subject: Re: Alex install failure
|
| [You don't often get email from ME@ARA.IO. Learn why this is important at
| http://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification.]
|
| NFS can be pretty dodgy with transient files due to latency. Sometimes
| the delete takes appreciable time after the command is issued so the lock
| file might just be persisting. I’d try installing into a cabal sandbox on
| a local drive and see if the same issue crops up.
|
| _ara
|
| > On 18 Aug 2017, at 23:43, Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj@microsoft.com>
| wrote:
| >
| > | Hmm. Here's a shot in the dark: is home home directory mounted via
| > | NFS by any chance?
| >
| > Direct hit!  (for the shot in the dark).  Yes it's NFS mounted I think.
| So what?
| >
| > Simon
| >
| > | -----Original Message-----
| > | From: Ben Gamari [mailto:ben@smart-cactus.org]
| > | Sent: 18 August 2017 13:05
| > | To: Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj@microsoft.com>; ghc-devs <ghc-
| > | devs@haskell.org>
| > | Subject: Re: Alex install failure
| > |
| > | Simon Peyton Jones via ghc-devs <ghc-devs@haskell.org> writes:
| > |
| > | > Friends
| > | > I'm trying to update my installation of alex, on Unix (Ubuntu).
| > | > But I get the dump below It's complaining about a lock file being
| > | > an invalid
| > | argument (see highlight below).
| > | > If I manually remove the file I get past that, it successfully
| > | > installs tf-random, but the same thing happens on the next
| > | > package. So I can install packages one at a time, but that's silly.
| > |
| > | Hmm. Here's a shot in the dark: is home home directory mounted via
| > | NFS by any chance?
| > |
| > | Cheers,
| > |
| > | - Ben
| >
| >