Looks like coverity's scan of the Linux kernel has problems with analyzing locks across some debug print macros (which ironically don't use any locks related to this component) e.g. Coverity Linux issues: 1484748, 1484736, 1475751, 1475743 and 1475726 as an example it flags the section of code below, and others with calls to "cifs_dbf(VFS, ...) " in them (and note that the debug macros don't take a lock) starting with the cifs_dbg(VFS, ...) call. It says: "May result in deadlock if there is another attempt to acquire the lock. In find_cifs_entry: Missing a release of a lock on a path" Oddly it doesn't flag "cifs_dbg(FYI, ...") calls, and even more strangely the calls they flag are simply wrappers around calls to "pr_err__ ## ratefunc ..." See below snippet from fs/cifs/readdir.c e.g. cifs_dbg(VFS, "reached end of buf searching for pos in buf %d index to find %lld rc %d\n", pos_in_buf, index_to_find, rc); } rc = 0; *current_entry = cur_ent; } else { cifs_dbg(FYI, "index not in buffer - could not findnext into it\n"); return 0; } if (pos_in_buf >= cfile->srch_inf.entries_in_buffer) { cifs_dbg(FYI, "can not return entries pos_in_buf beyond last\n"); *num_to_ret = 0; } else *num_to_ret = cfile->srch_inf.entries_in_buffer - pos_in_buf; return rc; } -- Thanks, Steve