OK, just checked last nights backup and can see the following on the mariadb logs:
[00:30:03] INFO: Lock tables using mariadb client…
[00:30:03] INFO: MariaDB tables locked.
[00:30:13] INFO: MariaDB tables unlocked.
So at this stage have no reason to think that this was not happening previously!
Yes, I’ve been “sitting pretty” for ages now too (or perhaps not). Could be worth posting in the thread I linked, or some other Mariadb area.
Answer to topic question: “No, it’s likely not normal (anymore)”. Because of a restore experience:
Seems this is working meanwhile. Had to restore a HA backup and database looks fine so far. Details @ Fix corrupted / malformed SQLite database (home-assistant_v2.db) - #23 by e-raser.
Please see Fix corrupted / malformed SQLite database (home-assistant_v2.db) - #27 by e-raser containing great news 