Git Commit Freeze Due to GPG Lock Issues (Solution)

Git_Commit_Freeze_Solution.md

Git Commit Freeze Due to GPG Lock Issues

If you encounter a problem where you cannot commit changes in Git – neither through the terminal nor via the GitHub Desktop application – the issue might be a freeze during the Git commit process. This is often caused by GPG lock issues. Below is a concise and step-by-step guide to resolve this problem.

Solution Steps

1. Check for GPG Lock Messages

Open your terminal and try to perform a GPG operation (like signing a test message). If you see repeated messages like gpg: waiting for lock (held by [process_id]) ..., it indicates a lock issue.

For example:

❯ echo "test" | gpg --clearsign

gpg: waiting for lock (held by 3571) ...
gpg: waiting for lock (held by 3571) ...
gpg: waiting for lock (held by 3571) ...

2. Locate and Remove Stale Lock Files

List Lock Files:

For Linux:

ls -l ~/.gnupg/*.lock

For MacOS (Darwin):

ls -l ~/.gnupg/**/*.lock

This command lists all lockfiles in ~/.gnupg and its subdirectories without manual exploration.

Remove the Identified Stale Lock File:

rm ~/.gnupg/[name-of-the-stale-lock-file].lock

3. Restart GPG-Agent

After removing any stale lock files, it's important to reset the state of the GPG agent.

Command to Restart GPG-Agent:

gpgconf --reload gpg-agent

4. Test GPG Operations

To confirm if the issue is with GPG itself, try signing a simple test message:

Run:

echo "test" | gpg --clearsign

5. Retry Committing in Git

With the GPG lock issue resolved, try committing your changes again in Git.

For users on Darwin (MacOS)

Expanding upon @bmoncef-oa's comment, use the following command:

ls -l ~/.gnupg/**/*.lock

This lets you list all lockfiles without manually exploring each subdirectory.

Thank you @bahadiraraz and @bmoncef-oa :)

It helps a lot.

Helped a ton, thanks. For me the problem was that the "locked" file was missing altogether.

@VanuPhantom @bmoncef-oa , thank you

Big thanks!

Thank you, this helped.

Thanks @VanuPhantom, worked like a charm. Highly appreciated 🥇

👍

thank you! it helped 🎉

Thank you for the write-up, this issue was hard to debug. What helped me as well was using GIT_TRACE like:

GIT_TRACE=1 git commit -m "Adam"

This helped. Thanks.

Legend

I think I am in love with you.

thank you this just solved the problem after spending almost a day trying to fix it.