to defensively work around a still-mysterious bug where the
list of saved packages ends up being empty even though we still
have state pending. If we do re-initialize, then wipe all state
to make sure the right thing happens.
Don't keep open journal files -- close them after every update.
A bit less efficient, but possibly more reliable (again, this is
defensive programming here). Also change "rwd" to "rws" mode
for fully synchronous operation.
852f8e4660