Not sure what's going on, below is the relevant output when run with -i -v --tee (the rest succeeds without -i): ok 26 - untracked cache correct after status expecting success: avoid_racy && : >../trace && GIT_TRACE_UNTRACKED_STATS="$TRASH_DIRECTORY/trace" \ git status --porcelain >../status.actual && cat >../status.expect <<EOF && M done/two ?? .gitignore ?? done/five ?? dtwo/ EOF test_cmp ../status.expect ../status.actual && cat >../trace.expect <<EOF && node creation: 0 gitignore invalidation: 0 directory invalidation: 0 opendir: 0 EOF test_cmp ../trace.expect ../trace --- ../trace.expect 2016-07-18 22:23:28.679886000 +0000 +++ ../trace 2016-07-18 22:23:28.677135000 +0000 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ node creation: 0 gitignore invalidation: 0 -directory invalidation: 0 -opendir: 0 +directory invalidation: 1 +opendir: 1 not ok 27 - test sparse status again with untracked cache -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html