Comment 6 for bug 220464

bzr 2.4 will be able to do this. If you set 'locks.steal_dead = True' in eg ~/.bazaar/bazaar.conf or locations.conf, in cases where it is able to tell the lock is dead (specifically, coming from the same client). We have not yet set this by default, but we can look at doing that in future. Please turn it on and let us know if it helps.