diff --git a/src/lock.js b/src/lock.js
index 9f14a66d..38c932ba 100644
--- a/src/lock.js
+++ b/src/lock.js
@@ -5,9 +5,19 @@ const debug = require('debug')
 const { lock } = require('proper-lockfile')
 
 const log = debug('repo:lock')
-
 const lockFile = 'repo.lock'
 
+/**
+ * Duration in milliseconds in which the lock is considered stale
+ * @see https://github.com/moxystudio/node-proper-lockfile#lockfile-options
+ * The default value of 10000 was too low for ipfs and sometimes `proper-lockfile`
+ * would throw an exception because it couldn't update the lock file mtime within
+ * the 10s threshold. @see https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs-repo/pull/182
+ * Increasing to 20s is a temporary fix a permanent fix should be implemented in
+ * the future.
+ */
+const STALE_TIME = 20000
+
 /**
  * Lock the repo in the given dir.
  *
@@ -19,7 +29,7 @@ exports.lock = (dir, callback) => {
   const file = path.join(dir, lockFile)
   log('locking %s', file)
 
-  lock(dir, {lockfilePath: file})
+  lock(dir, {lockfilePath: file, stale: STALE_TIME})
     .then(release => {
       callback(null, {close: (cb) => {
         release()