Is it possible for competing file access to cause deadlock in Java?

I'm chasing a production bug that's intermittent enough to be a real bastich to diagnose properly but frequent enough to be a legitimate nuisance for our customers. While I'm waiting for it to happen again on a machine set to spam the logfile with trace output, I'm trying to come up with a theory on what it could be.

Is there any way for competing file read/writes to create what amounts to a deadlock condition? For instance, let's say I have Thread A that occasionally writes to config.xml, and Thread B that occasionally reads from it. Is there a set of circumstances that would cause Thread B to prevent Thread A from proceeding?

My thanks in advance to anybody who helps with thi开发者_StackOverflow社区s theoretical fishing expedition.

Edit: To answer Pyrolistical's questions: the code isn't using FileLock, and is running on a WinXP machine. Not asked, but probably worth noting: The production machines are running Java 1.5.

Temporarily setup your production process to startup with debugging support, add this to how you're starting your java program or to say the tomcat startup:

-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n

Then attach to it:

jdb -connect com.sun.jdi.SocketAttach:hostname=localhost,port=8000

And take a look at your stack(s).

FileLock is an inter-process locking mechanism. It does nothing within the same JVM, so that isn't it. I would look at your synchronizations, and specifically at making sure you always acquire multiple locks in the same order.

I've gotten some useful tips for chasing the underlying bug, but based on the responses I've gotten, it would seem the correct answer to the actual question is:

No.

Damn. That was anti-climactic.

I know this is old, but to add some clarity on a "No" answer (for those of us who need to know why):

Deadlocking happens when exactly two distinct processes (transactions) update alternate dependent rows or records, but in reverse order. Basically both hang waiting for the other to complete an action which will never occur (as they are both waiting on the other). This is generally found in faulty database design.

If I recall, Wikipedia has a good definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlock

Simple file access should not create dependencies like this. A more common issue would be your resource being used by another process and unavailable to the one trying to access it.