diff --git a/nova/privsep/path.py b/nova/privsep/path.py
index 680bce1751..c35e32ce54 100644
--- a/nova/privsep/path.py
+++ b/nova/privsep/path.py
@@ -70,10 +70,12 @@ def chmod(path, mode):
 def utime(path):
     if not os.path.exists(path):
         raise exception.FileNotFound(file_path=path)
-    # context wrapper ensures the file exists before trying to modify time
-    # which fixes a race condition with NFS image caching (see LP#1809123)
-    with open(path, 'a'):
-        os.utime(path, None)
+
+    # NOTE(mikal): the old version of this used execute(touch, ...), which
+    # would apparently fail on shared storage when multiple instances were
+    # being launched at the same time. If we see failures here, we might need
+    # to wrap this in a try / except.
+    os.utime(path, None)
 
 
 @nova.privsep.sys_admin_pctxt.entrypoint
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/fix-image-utime-race-condition-3c404e272ea91b34.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/fix-image-utime-race-condition-3c404e272ea91b34.yaml
deleted file mode 100644
index 08aa6e4860..0000000000
--- a/releasenotes/notes/fix-image-utime-race-condition-3c404e272ea91b34.yaml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
----
-fixes:
-  - |
-    Fixes a race condition when multiple instances are launched at the same
-    time, which leads to a failure when modifying the modified time of the
-    instance base image. This issue was noticed when using an NFS backend. For
-    more information see https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1809123
-