lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm         | 8 ++++----
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm | 2 +-
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiP2q.pm      | 2 +-
 lib/PublicInbox/MboxLock.pm    | 8 ++++----
 lib/PublicInbox/TestCommon.pm  | 9 +++++++++

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
index 72a0e52c62d148a7b61da1ce063c0ac26e81583d..bf97a6809ddb5a07fb266e531404255ac58743ad 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
@@ -757,7 +757,7 @@ 	};
 	my ($proto, undef, @spec) = @$info;
 	my $cur = pop @argv;
 	my $re = defined($cur) ? qr/\A\Q$cur\E/ : qr/./;
-	if (substr($cur // '-', 0, 1) eq '-') { # --switches
+	if (substr(my $_cur = $cur // '-', 0, 1) eq '-') { # --switches
 		# gross special case since the only git-config options
 		# Consider moving to a table if we need more special cases
 		# we use Getopt::Long for are the ones we reject, so these
@@ -781,7 +781,7 @@ 				s/([\w\-]+)/$1|no-$1/g
 			}
 			map {
 				my $x = length > 1 ? "--$_" : "-$_";
-				$x eq $cur ? () : $x;
+				$x eq $_cur ? () : $x;
 			} grep(!/_/, split(/\|/, $_, -1)) # help|h
 		} grep { $OPTDESC{"$_\t$cmd"} || $OPTDESC{$_} } @spec);
 	} elsif ($cmd eq 'config' && !@argv && !$CONFIG_KEYS{$cur}) {
@@ -796,13 +796,13 @@ 			my $v = $OPTDESC{$_};
 			my @v = ref($v) ? split(/\|/, $v->[0]) : ();
 			# get rid of ALL CAPS placeholder (e.g "OUT")
 			# (TODO: completion for external paths)
-			shift(@v) if uc($v[0]) eq $v[0];
+			shift(@v) if scalar(@v) && uc($v[0]) eq $v[0];
 			@v;
 		} grep(/\A(?:[\w-]+\|)*$opt\b.*?(?:\t$cmd)?\z/, keys %OPTDESC);
 	}
 	$cmd =~ tr/-/_/;
 	if (my $sub = $self->can("_complete_$cmd")) {
-		puts $self, $sub->($self, @argv, $cur);
+		puts $self, $sub->($self, @argv, $cur ? ($cur) : ());
 	}
 	# TODO: URLs, pathnames, OIDs, MIDs, etc...  See optparse() for
 	# proto parsing.
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
index b5dd85e158b18f007cf53f97e6e6c08f896430e0..f4e24c2a131ef3d6e4fa58dcc12b14183ddf4281 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ 	# Workaround bash word-splitting URLs to ['https', ':', '//' ...]
 	# Maybe there's a better way to go about this in
 	# contrib/completion/lei-completion.bash
 	my $re = '';
-	my $cur = pop @$argv;
+	my $cur = pop(@$argv) // '';
 	if (@$argv) {
 		my @x = @$argv;
 		if ($cur eq ':' && @x) {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiP2q.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiP2q.pm
index e7ddc852e492cfe500aa8b9ce31215f2bf498acb..c5718603c672b158934fc6067c8717f6e93423ab 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiP2q.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiP2q.pm
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ 			my $plusminus = ($pfx =~ s/\A([\+\-])//) ? $1 : '';
 			my $end = ($pfx =~ s/([0-9\*]+)\z//) ? $1 : '';
 			my $x = delete($lei->{qterms}->{$pfx}) or next;
 			my $star = $end =~ tr/*//d ? '*' : '';
-			my $min_len = ($end // 0) + 0;
+			my $min_len = ($end || 0) + 0;
 
 			# no wildcards for bool_pfx_external
 			$star = '' if $pfx =~ /\A(dfpre|dfpost|mid)\z/;
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/MboxLock.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/MboxLock.pm
index 4e2a2d9a4fed66bfb3d5328143345af51d697618..bea0e3253e6471b6f36637a66296f5b31835baaf 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/MboxLock.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/MboxLock.pm
@@ -43,13 +43,13 @@ 			return if $fl->lock($self->{fh}, $op);
 		}
 		select(undef, undef, undef, $self->{delay});
 	} while (now < $end);
-	croak "fcntl lock $self->{f}: $!";
+	die "fcntl lock timeout $self->{f}: $!\n";
 }
 
 sub acq_dotlock {
 	my ($self) = @_;
 	my $dot_lock = "$self->{f}.lock";
-	my ($pfx, $base) = ($self->{f} =~ m!(\A.*?/)([^/]+)\z!);
+	my ($pfx, $base) = ($self->{f} =~ m!(\A.*?/)?([^/]+)\z!);
 	$pfx //= '';
 	my $pid = $$;
 	my $end = now + $self->{timeout};
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ 		} else {
 			croak "open $tmp (for $dot_lock): $!" if !$!{EXIST};
 		}
 	} while (now < $end);
-	croak "dotlock $dot_lock";
+	die "dotlock timeout $dot_lock\n";
 }
 
 sub acq_flock {
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ 	do {
 		return if flock($self->{fh}, $op);
 		select(undef, undef, undef, $self->{delay});
 	} while (now < $end);
-	croak "flock $self->{f}: $!";
+	die "flock timeout $self->{f}: $!\n";
 }
 
 sub acq {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/TestCommon.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/TestCommon.pm
index 0d15514e2cb6f2859ab2296515fa82d9e05d2574..e67e94ea830bdfe8d0389529da9d1e16e2059693 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/TestCommon.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/TestCommon.pm
@@ -457,6 +457,15 @@ 	}
 	my $res = run_script(['lei', @$cmd], $env, $xopt // $lei_opt);
 	$err_skip and
 		$lei_err = join('', grep(!/$err_skip/, split(/^/m, $lei_err)));
+	if ($lei_err ne '') {
+		if ($lei_err =~ /Use of uninitialized/ ||
+			$lei_err =~ m!\bArgument .*? isn't numeric in !) {
+			fail "lei_err=$lei_err";
+		} else {
+			state $loud = $ENV{TEST_LEI_ERR_LOUD};
+			diag "lei_err=$lei_err" if $loud;
+		}
+	}
 	$res;
 };