This was caused by this sequence of calls
1> file.Release
1> file.close -> takes the file lock
2> vfs.waitforWriters
2> dir.walk -> takes the dir lock
1> file.setObject
1> dir.addObject -> attempts to take the dir lock - BLOCKS
2> file.activeWriters -> tries to take file lock - BLOCKS - DEADLOCK
The fix is to make activeWriters not take the file lock and use atomic
operations to read the number of writers instead.