Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: tracker

$ lsb_release -rd
Description:    Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release:        8.04

$ apt-cache policy tracker | head -2
tracker:
  Installed: 0.6.6-0ubuntu3.8.04.1

trackerd intends to use the O_NOATIME flag when opening files to index,
in order to preserve file timestamps (see http://mail.gnome.org/archives
/tracker-list/2008-April/msg00030.html describing changes in version
0.6.3 of tracker).  However, not all open() calls to files to be indexed
have the O_NOATIME, so the st_atime of the file is updated anyway.

Steps to reproduce:
* start a graphical login session with trackerd enabled; trackerd should be 
started automatically in the default gnome session
* strace -ff -e open `pidof trackerd` 2>&1 | grep test-file-name
* (in another terminal) cd Desktop
* echo test-file-contents > test-file-name
* Inspect the sequence of open() syscalls issued by trackerd

Expected behavior: each open() of test-file-name includes the 'O_NOATIME' flag
Actual behavior: at least one open() lacks the 'O_NOATIME' flag

Partial strace output:
[pid 13383] stat("/home/jepler/Desktop/test-file-name", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, 
st_size=19, ...}) = 0
[pid 13383] open("/home/jepler/Desktop/test-file-name", O_RDONLY) = 33
[pid 13383] open("/home/jepler/Desktop/test-file-name", O_RDONLY|O_NOATIME) = 33

This caused a difficult-to-diagnose problem in mutt where mbox files in
~/mail/ did not reliably appear as folders containing "new mail".
Workarounds seem to include forbidding trackerd to index in ~/mail or
(reportedly) using mutt's check_mbox_size option.

** Affects: tracker (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
trackerd uses O_NOATIME, but fruitlessly
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/312365
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