Matt Armstrong <marmstrong@google.com> writes:


> To address both, has something like this ever been considered:
>
>   notmuch --lock_timeout <seconds> COMMAND ARG...
>
> Then frontends like Emacs could lean on retry logic written in C.  If
> this seems workable, it is something I can try implementing.

notmuch in git master uses xapians lock retry if present (xapian
1.3+). Currently there is no timeout, but Olly seemed receptive to the
idea of adding one, so I'd suggest that's the right place to work on
improving this. You may find that just having unbounded lock retries
(i.e. blocking opens) is enough for your issues.

d