Big Delete Consistently Causes a Crash

Hi all,

I have a 8.3 cluster running under VM. It seems fine for most activities
(a bit slow but error free) but if the developer issues a delete
statement it consistently kills the database.

If the database is running in archive mode then it kills the archiver,
else it kills the client session. Sample info is below.

The delete is a nasty one, and will potentially delete almost half of
the data in the database(!) but it crashes consistently after about 1
minute. Small deletes work fine.

I can understand it taking ages and giving me various warnings as it is
an unfriendly statement but it shouldn't die.

Any ideas? Is this a bug perhaps? I've tried restating the cluster with
various memory parameters set, from default to fairly greedy settings
and the behaviour is consistent.

All suggestions gratefully received.

Log entry below:

2009-06-25 03:33:34 BST LOCATION: exec_execute_message, postgres.c:

1947
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOG: 00000: server process (PID 8379) was
terminated by signal 9: Killed
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOCATION: LogChildExit, postmaster.c:2529
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOG: 00000: terminating any other active
server processes
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOCATION: HandleChildCrash, postmaster.c:2374
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST WARNING: 57P02: terminating connection
because of crash of another server process
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST DETAIL: The postmaster has commanded this
server process to roll back the current transaction and exit,
because another
server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST HINT: In a moment you should be able to
reconnect to the database and repeat your command.
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOCATION: quickdie, postgres.c:2454
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST FATAL: 57P03: the database system is in
recovery mode
2009-06-25 03:34:26 BST LOCATION: ProcessStartupPacket,
postmaster.c:1648

Cheers

Ton

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