---
title: "Lock 'Em Dead"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/lock-em-dead-req6ildod
source_url: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/lock-em-dead
type: article
source: "The Daily WTF"
published: 2026-08-26T11:18:01.091Z
updated: 2026-08-26T11:18:16.013Z
tags: ["c++", "code-review"]
reading_time: 2
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Lock 'Em Dead

**[The Daily WTF](https://daily.dev/sources/thedailywtf)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A C++ exception handler meant to recover from a deadlock simply retries by jumping back to the top of a block without releasing the mutex the current thread holds, which does nothing to break the circular wait between two threads. A highly paid consultant brought in to fix existing deadlocks in the codebase appears to have introduced new ones with this retry macro, which is suspected to wrap a goto statement.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://thedailywtf.com/articles/lock-em-dead>

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [A traffic jam where nobody can move. That’s deadlock. And the fix?](https://daily.dev/posts/a-traffic-jam-where-nobody-can-move-that-s-deadlock-and-the-fix--gecv7hpes) · Medium · 9 upvotes · 1 comments
- [Uncaught Exceptions in C\+\+](https://daily.dev/posts/uncaught-exceptions-in-c--9zdrjnh7f) · Jacek Galowicz · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++), [#code-review](https://daily.dev/tags/code-review)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/lock-em-dead-req6ildod)