How to deal with bazaar error UnprintableException

Question

I've been trying to commit changes in my repo, but constantly get th following:

    bzr: ERROR: Unprintable exception LockContention: dict={'msg': IOError(11,
'\xd0\xa0\xd0\xb5\xd1\x81\xd1\x83\xd1\x80\xd1\x81
\xd0\xb2\xd1\x80\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbc\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbe
\xd0\xbd\xd0\xb5\xd0\xb4\xd0\xbe\xd1\x81\xd1\x82\xd1\x83\xd0\xbf\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd'), 'lock':
u'/home/mikhail/bzrrep/DLP/.bzr/checkout/dirstate'}, fmt='Could not acquire lock "%(lock)s":
%(msg)s', error=UnicodeDecodeError('ascii', '[Errno 11]
\xd0\xa0\xd0\xb5\xd1\x81\xd1\x83\xd1\x80\xd1\x81
\xd0\xb2\xd1\x80\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbc\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbe
\xd0\xbd\xd0\xb5\xd0\xb4\xd0\xbe\xd1\x81\xd1\x82\xd1\x83\xd0\xbf\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd', 11, 12,
'ordinal not in range(128)')

How to resolve it?

Answer 1

This error normally means that there is another bzr process running that still holds the lock for the repository (possibly put in the background with Ctrl-Z).

You should find that process and resume or kill it. This should release the lock.

If you are absolutely, 100% positive that there is no such process (this shouldn't really happen on a local repository, because locks are automatically released when the bzr process terminates), you can try bzr break-lock to break the lock regardless.

Note that breaking a lock should only be done as a last resort; if you forcibly break a lock and another process did still have access, then two bzr instances may be accessing the repository concurrently and corrupt the repository files. Breaking a lock should generally only be necessary when accessing a remote repository via a "dumb" protocol (sftp and friends). If you break a lock, it can be a good idea to back up the branch/repository first.

That the error message is not humanly readable is a known bug, I believe.