VACUUM ANALYZE FAILS on 7.0.3

"Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net> writes:

When I run VACUUM ANALYZE it fails and all the backend connections are
closed. Has anyone else run into this problem?

There should be a core dump file from the crashed backend in your
database subdirectory --- can you provide a backtrace from it?

regards, tom lane

Tom,

No core dump but here is the message from vacuum verbose analyze;

NOTICE: --Relation pg_rewrite--
pqReadData() -- backend closed the channel unexpectedly.
This probably means the backend terminated abnormally
before or while processing the request.
The connection to the server was lost. Attempting reset: Failed.

--DC--
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net>
Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] VACUUM ANALYZE FAILS on 7.0.3

"Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net> writes:

No core dump but here is the message from vacuum verbose analyze;

NOTICE: --Relation pg_rewrite--
pqReadData() -- backend closed the channel unexpectedly.

Can't tell much from that, except that the backend crashed, which
*should* leave a core dump.

On some platforms (eg, most Linux distros), processes started from
system boot scripts are by default started under "ulimit -c 0", which
prevents core dumps. To get more information about what's happening,
I recommend restarting the postmaster with "ulimit -c unlimited" so that
crashed backends will leave core files. While you're at it, make sure
you are starting the postmaster without -S, and redirect its stdout and
stderr into some convenient logfile. The postmaster log might also
contain useful info about what's going wrong...

regards, tom lane

Ok, I tried setting ulimit to unlimited inside the script. This didn't help,
still no core dump
I did get logging working though:

/usr/bin/postmaster: CleanupProc: pid 20146 exited with status 139
Server process (pid 20146) exited with status 139 at Tue Jan 23 22:32:26
2001
Terminating any active server processes...
Server processes were terminated at Tue Jan 23 22:32:26 2001
Reinitializing shared memory and semaphores
010123.22:32:26.086 [19777] shmem_exit(0)

--DC--
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net>
Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] VACUUM ANALYZE FAILS on 7.0.3

"Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net> writes:

Ok, I tried setting ulimit to unlimited inside the script. This didn't help,
still no core dump
I did get logging working though:

/usr/bin/postmaster: CleanupProc: pid 20146 exited with status 139
Server process (pid 20146) exited with status 139 at Tue Jan 23 22:32:26
2001

Well, that is for *sure* a backend crashing --- with signal 11, which
is SIGSEGV on most Unixen. There should be a coredump. Poke around in
your OS documentation and see if you can figure out what's preventing
the core file from being written.

(BTW, you are looking in the right place no? $PGDATA/base/yourdbname/core)

regards, tom lane

I had a machine with a bad CPU that did that, but I don't know that this is
your case.

Perhaps a bad index?

Can you determine if only one table is the cause (i.e. Vacuum Analyze
<table>).

Anything in the logs?

--rob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Cramer" <Dave@micro-automation.net>
To: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 1:35 PM
Subject: VACUUM ANALYZE FAILS on 7.0.3