Daily Term: Livelock

Livelock

A Livelock occurs when threads are actively trying to resolve a conflict but remain stuck in a loop, unable to make progress. For example, two threads might keep yielding a shared resource to each other indefinitely, like two people stepping aside to let the other pass in a hallway. Unlike a deadlock, threads in a livelock are running, but they can’t proceed. Livelocks are resolved by introducing randomness or prioritization in conflict resolution.

Date: 2025-08-15