diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 97eb23e410..850d88ff4a 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -13,6 +13,9 @@ git-annex (8.20210622) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
     with youtube-dl or a special remote. In particular this can avoid
     falling back to raw download when youtube-dl is blocked for some
     reason.
+  * Fixed bug that interrupting git-annex repair (or assistant) while
+    it was fixing repository corruption would lose objects that were
+    contained in pack files.
 
  -- Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>  Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:25:25 -0400
 
diff --git a/Git/Repair.hs b/Git/Repair.hs
index d80ebd8b68..d52d70ba07 100644
--- a/Git/Repair.hs
+++ b/Git/Repair.hs
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {- git repository recovery
  -
- - Copyright 2013-2014 Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
+ - Copyright 2013-2021 Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
  -
  - Licensed under the GNU AGPL version 3 or higher.
  -}
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import Git.Sha
 import Git.Types
 import Git.Fsck
 import Git.Index
+import Git.Env
 import qualified Git.Config as Config
 import qualified Git.Construct as Construct
 import qualified Git.LsTree as LsTree
@@ -61,15 +62,14 @@ cleanCorruptObjects fsckresults r = do
 		whenM (isMissing s r) $
 			removeLoose s
 
-{- Explodes all pack files, and deletes them.
+{- Explodes all pack files to loose objects, and deletes the pack files.
  -
- - First moves all pack files to a temp dir, before unpacking them each in
- - turn.
+ - git unpack-objects will not unpack objects from a pack file that are
+ - in the git repo. So, GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY is pointed to a temporary
+ - directory, and the loose objects then are moved into place, before
+ - deleting the pack files.
  -
- - This is because unpack-objects will not unpack a pack file if it's in the
- - git repo.
- -
- - Also, this prevents unpack-objects from possibly looking at corrupt
+ - Also, that prevents unpack-objects from possibly looking at corrupt
  - pack files to see if they contain an object, while unpacking a
  - non-corrupt pack file.
  -}
@@ -78,18 +78,28 @@ explodePacks r = go =<< listPackFiles r
   where
 	go [] = return False
 	go packs = withTmpDir "packs" $ \tmpdir -> do
+		r' <- addGitEnv r "GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY" tmpdir
 		putStrLn "Unpacking all pack files."
 		forM_ packs $ \packfile -> do
-			moveFile packfile (tmpdir </> takeFileName packfile)
-			removeWhenExistsWith R.removeLink
-				(packIdxFile (toRawFilePath packfile))
-		forM_ packs $ \packfile -> do
-			let tmp = tmpdir </> takeFileName packfile
-			allowRead (toRawFilePath tmp)
+			-- Just in case permissions are messed up.
+			allowRead (toRawFilePath packfile)
 			-- May fail, if pack file is corrupt.
 			void $ tryIO $
-				pipeWrite [Param "unpack-objects", Param "-r"] r $ \h ->
-				L.hPut h =<< L.readFile tmp
+				pipeWrite [Param "unpack-objects", Param "-r"] r' $ \h ->
+				L.hPut h =<< L.readFile packfile
+		objs <- dirContentsRecursive tmpdir
+		forM_ objs $ \objfile -> do
+			f <- relPathDirToFile
+				(toRawFilePath tmpdir)
+				(toRawFilePath objfile)
+			let dest = objectsDir r P.</> f
+			createDirectoryIfMissing True
+				(fromRawFilePath (parentDir dest))
+			moveFile objfile (fromRawFilePath dest)
+		forM_ packs $ \packfile -> do
+			let f = toRawFilePath packfile
+			removeWhenExistsWith R.removeLink f
+			removeWhenExistsWith R.removeLink (packIdxFile f)
 		return True
 
 {- Try to retrieve a set of missing objects, from the remotes of a
diff --git a/doc/bugs/Git_repos_corrupt_themselves/comment_16_586e591a1e3cc53fd0108da91492c5c2._comment b/doc/bugs/Git_repos_corrupt_themselves/comment_16_586e591a1e3cc53fd0108da91492c5c2._comment
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3d15799ed7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/bugs/Git_repos_corrupt_themselves/comment_16_586e591a1e3cc53fd0108da91492c5c2._comment
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+[[!comment format=mdwn
+ username="joey"
+ subject="""comment 16"""
+ date="2021-06-29T16:11:03Z"
+ content="""
+I have verified that an interrupted repair results in data loss, when
+.git/objects contains pack files.
+
+Fixed that. Which leaves 2 open questions:
+
+* Was the assistant interrupted somehow while it was running repair, in
+  Atemu's case? That could have been anything from the laptop being
+  powered off, to it being stopped explicitly, to it crashing.
+* What caused the assistant to think it needed repair in the first place?
+
+Although the answer to the second question doesn't matter much if the
+data loss bug is fixed -- if there's a problem of some kind causing
+unncessary repairs, it would only be some excess CPU load.
+"""]]