title: Disable locking of Neo4j graph database?
body: <p>My application is populating a Neo4j graph database at <code>/tmp/import.db</code>. In addition to my unit tests I like to use the Neo4j browser (AKA Neo4j Community) to do some digging in that same database. When the browser is running, my application crashes when it gets run because the database it is locked:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Error starting org.neo4j.kernel.EmbeddedGraphDatabase, /tmp/import.db
      at org.neo4j.kernel.InternalAbstractGraphDatabase.run(InternalAbstractGraphDatabase.java:330)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.EmbeddedGraphDatabase.&lt;init&gt;(EmbeddedGraphDatabase.java:63)
      at org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.GraphDatabaseFactory$1.newDatabase(GraphDatabaseFactory.java:92)
      at org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.GraphDatabaseBuilder.newGraphDatabase(GraphDatabaseBuilder.java:198)
      at org.neo4j.graphdb.factory.GraphDatabaseFactory.newEmbeddedDatabase(GraphDatabaseFactory.java:69)
      at no.marcello.cmdb.Import.&lt;init&gt;(Import.java:34)
      at no.marcello.cmdb.Main.main(Main.java:10)
  Caused by: org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifecycleException: Component 'org.neo4j.kernel.StoreLockerLifecycleAdapter@5d20e46' was successfully initialized, but failed to start. Please see attached cause exception.
      at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport$LifecycleInstance.start(LifeSupport.java:509)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport.start(LifeSupport.java:115)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.InternalAbstractGraphDatabase.run(InternalAbstractGraphDatabase.java:307)
      ... 6 more
  Caused by: org.neo4j.kernel.StoreLockException: Unable to obtain lock on store lock file: /tmp/import.db/store_lock. Please ensure no other process is using this database, and that the directory is writable (required even for read-only access)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.StoreLocker.checkLock(StoreLocker.java:82)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.StoreLockerLifecycleAdapter.start(StoreLockerLifecycleAdapter.java:44)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifeSupport$LifecycleInstance.start(LifeSupport.java:503)
      ... 8 more
  Caused by: java.io.IOException: Unable to lock sun.nio.ch.FileChannelImpl@70b0b186
      at org.neo4j.kernel.impl.nioneo.store.FileLock.wrapFileChannelLock(FileLock.java:38)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.impl.nioneo.store.FileLock.getOsSpecificFileLock(FileLock.java:93)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.DefaultFileSystemAbstraction.tryLock(DefaultFileSystemAbstraction.java:89)
      at org.neo4j.kernel.StoreLocker.checkLock(StoreLocker.java:74)
      ... 10 more
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now I have to <code>neo4j stop</code> and <code>neo4j start</code> between every run of my application to see the changes. My hands got tired of that.</p>
  
  <p>Can I disable locking of the database when using the Neo4j browser? I'd like to do that for testing purposes, as it helps alot to see how my database model evolves while I'm populating it.</p>