lib/PublicInbox/Over.pm     | 4 +++-
 lib/PublicInbox/SharedKV.pm | 3 ++-

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Over.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Over.pm
index 19da056a10aff5de4455e80c1e30b03190352258..98de82c048c86889c543cc3c871d647c5f7642c6 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Over.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Over.pm
@@ -16,9 +16,11 @@
 sub dbh_new {
 	my ($self, $rw) = @_;
 	my $f = delete $self->{filename};
-	if (!-f $f) { # SQLite defaults mode to 0644, we want 0666
+	if (!-s $f) { # SQLite defaults mode to 0644, we want 0666
 		if ($rw) {
 			require PublicInbox::Spawn;
+			my ($dir) = ($f =~ m!(.+)/[^/]+\z!);
+			PublicInbox::Spawn::nodatacow_dir($dir);
 			open my $fh, '+>>', $f or die "failed to open $f: $!";
 			PublicInbox::Spawn::nodatacow_fd(fileno($fh));
 		} else {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/SharedKV.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/SharedKV.pm
index 645bb57c90a63bb29521c9bde2be6ce6328bab1c..398f4ca8dd70ef70af87ecf348689b6561c1532f 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/SharedKV.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/SharedKV.pm
@@ -51,7 +51,8 @@ 	$dir //= $self->{"tmp$$.$self"} = tempdir("skv.$$-XXXX", TMPDIR => 1);
 	$base //= '';
 	my $f = $self->{filename} = "$dir/$base.sqlite3";
 	$self->{lock_path} = $opt->{lock_path} // "$dir/$base.flock";
-	unless (-f $f) {
+	unless (-s $f) {
+		PublicInbox::Spawn::nodatacow_dir($dir); # for journal/shm/wal
 		open my $fh, '+>>', $f or die "failed to open $f: $!";
 		PublicInbox::Spawn::nodatacow_fd(fileno($fh));
 	}