Sometimes a mv between directories will rename the file but leave it in the same directory. Unfortunately it's not as reproducable as I'd like, but here's the basic idea: $ mkdir a b $ touch a/c $ while mv a/c b/d && mv b/d a/c; do 9 ls a b; done; 9 ls a b a/c mv: cannot stat `b/d': No such file or directory a/d The second time around when I ran the loop it seemed to be working consistently, then I ctrl-C'd it and now I have a/c *and* b/d, but attempts to access a/c are met with "Bad file descriptor". After I removed a/c and tried to recreate it I seem to have crashed u9fs. I can reproduce the problem with spfs's ufs. It took longer, and each individual mv was quicker, but I don't know if these observations are relevant or just circumstancial. Versions: linux 2.6.22 coreutils 6.9 u9fs (non .u version, from plan9) spfs/ufs ~20061225
Fixed by Lucho w/commit 22150c4f0f02619c256f35db2f1ec912549b4ca5 pending merge into 2.6.24-rc0