I get a daily cron email with the following warnings/errors:

  /etc/cron.daily/etckeeper:
  abort: path contains illegal component: .hg/undo.dirstate
  abort: path contains illegal component: .hg/undo.backup.dirstate

It seems not to be a Debian-specific problem:

<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1480843>

But the patch there doesn't apply to the Debian
/etc/etckeeper/pre-commit.d/20warn-problem-files

But the following reworked version of the patch does apply.  It has
fixed the problem for me.

The problem is still present in 1.18.12-1.

Here is my patch for skipping mercurial's data directory:

+++ a/pre-commit.d/20warn-problem-files	2020-05-01 18:52:57.654521579 +0300
--- b/pre-commit.d/20warn-problem-files	2020-05-01 19:05:01.103549539 +0300
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 	hardlinks=$(find . -type f ! -links 1 | exclude_internal ) || true
 elif [ "$VCS" = hg ]; then
 	special=$(find . ! -type d ! -type f ! -type l | exclude_internal) || true
-	hardlinks=$(find . -type f ! -links 1 -exec hg status {} \; | exclude_internal ) || true
+	hardlinks=$(find . \( -name .hg -prune \) -o \( -type f ! -links 1 -exec hg status {} \; \) ) || true
 elif [ "$VCS" = git ]; then
 	special=$(find . ! -type d ! -type f ! -type l -exec git ls-files --exclude-standard --cached --others {} + | exclude_internal) || true
 	hardlinks=$(find . -type f ! -links 1 -exec git ls-files --exclude-standard --cached --others {} + | exclude_internal) || true

Control: found -1 1.18.14-1
Control: tag -1 +moreinfo
is it not skipping those directories?

I mistakenly marked this bug as fixed in 1.18.14-1, thinking that was
introduced after, but it seems like it wasn't...

a.

04.05.2020 20:57, Antoine Beaupré wrote:

Error messages are coming from `hg status` which is executed _before_
exclude_internal filter. So we need to filter mercurial's internal directory
before 'hg status' call.

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
etckeeper, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 884987@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Antoine Beaupré <anarcat@debian.org> (supplier of updated etckeeper package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Mon, 04 May 2020 13:32:38 -0400
Source: etckeeper
Architecture: source
Version: 1.18.14-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Antoine Beaupré <anarcat@debian.org>
Changed-By: Antoine Beaupré <anarcat@debian.org>
Closes: 811180 884987 921447 928177
Changes:
 etckeeper (1.18.14-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ Antoine Beaupré ]
   * New upstream release (Closes: #884987)
   * debian/patches/fix-sh-syntax.diff: drop, merged in 1.18.13
   * merge NMU 1.18.10-1.1 I forgot, below
 .
   [ Mattia Rizzolo ]
   * Import patches from Ubuntu (Closes: #928177):
     + Use a UTF-8 encoding, to ensure stable sorting.
     + Add a Breezy plugin, using Python3.
   * Replace bzr dependencies with brz (bzr is now a transitional package).
   * d/control:
     + Bump Standards-Version to 4.4.1, no changes needed.
     + Set Rules-Requires-Root: no.
     + Drop Conflicts against a very old version of bzr.
     + Drop version requirements against very old versions, all satisfied
       in oldoldstable.
     + Bump debhelper compat level to 12.
   * Build using Python3 instead of Python2 (Closes: #811180, #921447)
     (This stops installing the bzr plugin, instead installing the brz one).
Checksums-Sha1:
 c8efad31cdcb036fadf554b7eca74e673a54d916 1590 etckeeper_1.18.14-1.dsc
 911575137d218cc7831b5fbe95ff13934ca6a3fe 93528 etckeeper_1.18.14.orig.tar.gz
 9b8782e0bb72be44fade1bf082b9174de96ec9d0 25036 etckeeper_1.18.14-1.debian.tar.xz
 673dd54fe6660376dcc119045713826c93949a30 7071 etckeeper_1.18.14-1_source.buildinfo
Checksums-Sha256:
 23487e5bfe12d93a61137757011db20ff7aabab1972c26837787560fdcd04d06 1590 etckeeper_1.18.14-1.dsc
 15924673fa3f15e4b172f9f0111a442ed3f0ee99dcf9ad3c5107736ffb8c1089 93528 etckeeper_1.18.14.orig.tar.gz
 005bde48231b2e4641fea5690e7887bd77c7b84c56541beb4ca272e1e3d56f47 25036 etckeeper_1.18.14-1.debian.tar.xz
 8b1d649c46a5e96e523647e23840e759542315ecfb537fe83044fd92731e42e0 7071 etckeeper_1.18.14-1_source.buildinfo
Files:
 360418a6b124fae0acaee73fae80f6f8 1590 admin optional etckeeper_1.18.14-1.dsc
 16da85e787dccef11fcf32baddf47d79 93528 admin optional etckeeper_1.18.14.orig.tar.gz
 55805914b4b81199284d7436e652a67e 25036 admin optional etckeeper_1.18.14-1.debian.tar.xz
 e0170b9945bf1b067120cad19041ca44 7071 admin optional etckeeper_1.18.14-1_source.buildinfo
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This bug may be worth reopening.  I have it with version 1.18.18-1.1
seeing exactly what was reported in Message #5 of the report
<https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=884987#5>

found 884987 1.18.18-1.1
found 884987 1.18.20-1
thanks

I still regularly see this bug even after version 1.18.14-1.  In Message
#41 <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=884987#41>, I
sent it in a full reportbug report for version 1.18.18-1.1 .  I am now
seeing it with version 1.18.20-1 .

The bug is not a life-altering problem, but thank you for reopening it.