[gentoo-user] [OT encfs] When encfs gets hungup

[Harry Putnam]

Sorry about the OT, I couldn't raise a stir on the encfs group in
several days... I'm hoping someone here is experienced with encfs.

Actually I'm somewhat experienced with it myself.  I've been keeping
encfs directory for yrs now for special stuff.

Somehow I managed to really hurt the installation ... here is what I
remember having done:

Some how I got mixed up when running as root, and attempted to mount a
users encfs directory.  (Its a single user machine so it my users
directory) 

That should just fail with some kind of permission error since no one,
even root, can mess with someone elses' encfs directory.

But once I'd done that I could no longer even `ls' the subject
directory.  Not as user, not as root.  A simple `ls' would totally
hang the terminal.

Of course I tried to umount but really it never actually mounted.

I started getting this error: `Transport endpoint is not connected'

I could see roots attempt to mount the darn thing in ps wwaux output
and killed that pid.

Eventually (after posting several days ago on encfs list.  I resorted
to umounting /home (after full backup of course) and reformatted it.

I was then able to deleted encfs_raw and encfs_mnt.

But here is the real kicker.  Even after all that, and in fact another
full round of mostly the same stuff, including another reformat.  So
two reformats and two reboots.  Even with that, I still cannot create a
new enc_raw and enc_mount of the same name as the old one.

I would like to, because I have several scripts that depend on that
name.  Not a huge deal... but what could still be causing trouble?

I can create any number of encfs directories with different names.
Just not the original.

What happens if I try is that after creation (using old name) I can
move files to the new (with old name) directory.

But if I once umount it like: fusermount -u /my/oldencfs, then when I
try next to mount it, it hangs terminally.  Takes over the terminal
and kills all further progress (in that terminal).  This happens at
the point where I answer the passwd prompt with the appropriate
passwd.

(No .. no chance I'm entering it wrong... its been in daily use for
yrs).

I'm kind of stumped at what else to try.  I've used encfs -v (verbose)
mode and -f (foreground) mode but after entering the passwd... it
all just goes south... nothing more can happen.

Maybe encfs keeps data somewhere that I can delete and make this go
away?  But a `qlist encfs', listing all that got installed doesn't show
anything like that.