Unable to lock store directory: [path] – Neo4j storage subsystem lock acquisition behavior

Goal: Clarify whether Neo4j’s storage layer should automatically retry obtaining an exclusive lock on its data directory when a transient NFS latency causes the initial lock attempt to fail, or whether it should treat the failure as fatal and shut down immediately.

Constraints: The behavior varies between Neo4j 3.x, 4.x, and 5.x releases and can be influenced by the dbms.lock.acquisition.timeout setting; logs show the same “Unable to lock store directory” message regardless of outcome, making it difficult to discern if a retry is pending without additional instrumentation.

Questions: Does Neo4j currently implement a retry loop for lock acquisition, and if so, what is the default retry interval and maximum attempts? How does the dbms.lock.acquisition.timeout parameter interact with any internal retry logic across different versions?