Please describe the problem.

It was introduced somewhere between 10.20220322-1~ndall+1 to 10.20220724-1~ndall+1 ( I will try to bisect now) and started to cause datalad-crawler tests to fail with that upgrade, see crawler issue. Here is the situation in the nutshell:

(git-annex)lena:~/.tmp/datalad_temp_test_balsa_extract_meta6ro1j8gw[incoming-processed]git
$> git status
On branch incoming-processed
All conflicts fixed but you are still merging.
  (use "git commit" to conclude merge)

Changes to be committed:
    new file:   .datalad/crawl/statuses/incoming.json
    new file:   .datalad/meta/balsa.json
    new file:   _files/dir1/file2.nii
    new file:   _files/file1.nii
    new file:   dir1/file2.nii
    new file:   file1.nii

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
    deleted:    _files/dir1/file2.nii
    deleted:    _files/file1.nii

$> /usr/lib/git-annex.linux/git annex add .                                  
git-annex: _files/dir1/file2.nii: getSymbolicLinkStatus: does not exist (No such file or directory)

here is a minimal reproducer

$> ( export PATH=/usr/lib/git-annex.linux/:$PATH; chmod +w -R /tmp/repo || : ; rm -rf /tmp/repo; mkdir /tmp/repo; cd /tmp/repo; git init; git annex init; touch file; git annex add file; rm file; git annex add .; echo $?)
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/repo/.git/
init  ok
(recording state in git...)
add file 
ok
(recording state in git...)
git-annex: file: getSymbolicLinkStatus: does not exist (No such file or directory)
1

I am a little surprised that it is only datalad-crawler, not datalad or git-annex, unittests pick up on this

fixed --Joey