a.c

[scottmg:~]$ pwd
/Users/scottmg
[scottmg:~]$ cat a.c
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main() {
  for (int count = 0; ; ++count) {
    struct stat st;
    if (stat("../../usr/bin/env", &st) < 0) {
      if (errno == ENOENT || errno == ENOTDIR) {
        fprintf(stderr, "got errno: %d (ENOENT=%d, ENOTDIR=%d)\n", errno, ENOENT, ENOTDIR);
        char buf[256];
        getcwd(buf, sizeof(buf));
        fprintf(stderr, "cwd: %s\n", buf);
        fprintf(stderr, "count=%d\n", count);
      }
      return 1;
    }
  }
  return 0;
}
[scottmg:~]$ clang a.c -o a
[scottmg:~]$ ./a
got errno: 2 (ENOENT=2, ENOTDIR=20)
cwd: /Users/scottmg
count=504033

I was able to repro, although it can take a long time to trigger:

% ./a
got errno: 2 (ENOENT=2, ENOTDIR=20)
cwd: /Users/bram
count=10192178

So far, I've not been able to trigger it running as root.

Ah, thanks for confirming, I was wondering if it was perhaps some internal corp-anti-malware-monitoring thing.

I hear this might be getting fixed in macOS 12.3.

👍

But the question is what will break in 12.3 to take its place?