quota of %s is inconsistent, please repair it with --repair

Error message

quota of %s is inconsistent, please repair it with --repair flag

What it means

Raised by baseMeta.checkDirUsage (pkg/meta/quota.go:975) when the quota record's stored usage (UsedInodes/UsedSpace) differs from the live summary computed by GetSummary, and the check was run without --repair. It is a consistency-check failure: the metadata engine's cached quota usage has drifted from actual filesystem contents.

Source

Thrown at pkg/meta/quota.go:975

		humanize.Comma(q.UsedInodes), humanize.IBytes(uint64(q.UsedSpace)),
		humanize.Comma(usedInodes), humanize.IBytes(uint64(usedSpace)),
	)

	if repair {
		q.UsedInodes = usedInodes
		q.UsedSpace = usedSpace
		quotas[dpath] = q
		logger.Info("repairing...")
		_, err = m.en.doSetQuota(ctx, qtype, key, &Quota{
			MaxInodes:  -1,
			MaxSpace:   -1,
			UsedInodes: q.UsedInodes,
			UsedSpace:  q.UsedSpace,
		})
		return err
	}

	return fmt.Errorf("quota of %s is inconsistent, please repair it with --repair flag", dpath)
}

func (m *baseMeta) compareUGUsage(usageMap map[uint64]*Summary, quotaMap map[uint64]*Quota, qtype uint32, retQuotas map[string]*Quota) bool {
	var hasErr bool
	idType := "uid"
	if qtype == GroupQuotaType {
		idType = "gid"
	}
	for id, usage := range usageMap {
		usedSpace := int64(usage.Size)
		usedInodes := int64(usage.Files)
		q, ok := quotaMap[id]
		if !ok {
			logger.Warnf("%s:%d: quota not found, actual usage(%s, %s)",
				idType, id, humanize.Comma(usedInodes), humanize.IBytes(uint64(usedSpace)))
			hasErr = true
			continue
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to c9a67b23e8)

Solutions

Re-run with the --repair flag: `juicefs quota check <path> --repair`; this rewrites UsedInodes/UsedSpace from the fresh summary via doSetQuota.
Inspect the logged warning just before the error (quota(...) != summary(...)) to gauge the drift magnitude before repairing.
If drift recurs, check for mixed client versions / known quota bugs and upgrade all clients.
Verify no other writes are mutating the tree during check/repair to avoid a new race.

Example fix

// before
$ juicefs quota check /mnt/jfs/data
// ERROR: quota of /mnt/jfs/data is inconsistent, please repair it with --repair flag
// after
$ juicefs quota check /mnt/jfs/data --repair

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// pre-compute expected usage to detect drift before official check
var sum meta.Summary
if st := m.GetSummary(ctx, ino, &sum, true, false); st == 0 {
    if q.UsedInodes != int64(sum.Dirs+sum.Files)-1 || q.UsedSpace != int64(sum.Size)-int64(4096) {
        logger.Warn("quota drift detected; run check with --repair")
    }
}

Try / catch

if err := quotaCheck(path, false); err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "--repair flag") {
    err = quotaCheck(path, true) // retry in repair mode
}

Prevention

Schedule periodic `juicefs quota check --repair` to self-heal drift.
Upgrade all clients to the same version to avoid accounting bugs.
Avoid restoring metadata from old backups without a subsequent quota repair.

When it happens

Trigger: `juicefs quota check <path>` (without --repair) where q.UsedInodes != sum-based usedInodes or q.UsedSpace != usedSpace, e.g. after crashes, rollback of metadata, or bugs that missed quota accounting updates.

Common situations: Metadata engine restored from an old backup; a crash between data write and quota update; clients running older versions that mishandled quota increments; deleted files not decrementing usage due to a bug.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid state transition" errors: "status must be X, actually Y", "already rejected/charging/uninstalled", "cannot ... while running" — what they mean when a library rejects your call — this error's family across 31 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of juicedata/juicefs@c9a67b23e8 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ce0a2a072c13d792. Report an issue: GitHub.