errno 105 (EOWNERDEAD): meaning and diagnosis

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: A robust mutex was acquired after its prior owner terminated, leaving the protected state potentially inconsistent.

Could be also:
Constant	Type	OS
ERROR_SEM_OWNER_DIED	Win32 error	Windows
ENOBUFS	errno	Linux
ECANCELED	errno	Windows
IO1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED	BugCheck Code	Windows

Previous	Next
ENOTRECOVERABLE	EQFULL

EOWNERDEAD

The caller may hold the lock, but not yet trustworthy state

EOWNERDEAD is unusual because the caller can acquire a robust mutex and still receive a nonzero result. The prior owner terminated while holding the lock, so the new owner must treat the protected data as potentially inconsistent and decide whether it can be repaired.

Do not immediately resume normal work. First validate or reconstruct the data protected by the mutex; only after successful repair should the implementation mark the state consistent through the robust-mutex recovery mechanism. Unlocking without completing recovery can turn the mutex into the permanently unusable ENOTRECOVERABLE state.

What recovery must establish

Which mutations were in progress when the previous owner stopped and whether an on-disk or in-memory journal can be replayed.
That all invariants of the shared structure, not just the lock word, are restored before other threads proceed.
That crash and cancellation paths leave enough evidence to distinguish an owner failure from a normal unlock.

References

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