While running btrfs/004 from xfstests, after 503 iterations, dmesg reported
a deadlock between tasks iterating inode refs and tasks running delayed inodes
(during a transaction commit).
It turns out that iterating inode refs implies doing one tree search and
release all nodes in the path except the leaf node, and then passing that
leaf node to btrfs_ref_to_path(), which in turn does another tree search
without releasing the lock on the leaf node it received as parameter.
This is a problem when other task wants to write to the btree as well and
ends up updating the leaf that is read locked - the writer task locks the
parent of the leaf and then blocks waiting for the leaf's lock to be
released - at the same time, the task executing btrfs_ref_to_path()
does a second tree search, without releasing the lock on the first leaf,
and wants to access a leaf (the same or another one) that is a child of
the same parent, resulting in a deadlock.