Users of the Linux NFS client v4.0 (and even v4.1) may encounter stale file
handles or stale data if git gc is running for a long time. A patch for this
kernel bug is here: https://marc.info/?l=linux-nfs&m=153816500525563&w=2
This workaround calls stat() on the packed-refs file to force the kernel to do a directory entry validation on the inode.
Closes #1339 (closed)