I have a particular annexed file (call its key K), and I'm trying to find out why git annex considers it in-use.

Joey's comment to Dead repo content is not considered unused does a good job of explaining why, in theory, a file might be considered in-use.

But how can I determine, in a particular case, why a given file is in-use? I.e. how can I determine what's referencing it?

Things I've tried:

  • git annex unused --used-refspec=+foo, where I'm certain that neither tag foo nor any of its ancestors references the file in question (that command doesn't report any unused files)

  • Verifying that there are now no symlinks to the annex object in question

  • git log --stat --no-textconv -S'K' (which produces no output)

Background:

git annex unused listed K as unused. I wanted to see what it was, so I did git annex addunused on it to create a symlink. (As expected, after this, git annex unused reported no unused files.)

Having determined that the file was in fact no longer needed, I rm'ed the symlink, expecting git annex unused to again report K as unused. But it doesn't; it still reports no unused files.

I'm not aware of having done anything that would create a reference other than addunused's new symlink, but clearly I did so without being aware of it...

So I'm trying to figure out where that reference is, so I can stomp on it and then git annex dropunused to get rid of the file for good.

Thanks.