Inexplicably running wild and freezing with 7.0 - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

From pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org
Subject Inexplicably running wild and freezing with 7.0
Date
Msg-id 200009281519.e8SFJMA22327@hub.org
Whole thread Raw
List pgsql-bugs
Julian Coutts (jster@cobite.com) reports a bug with a severity of 1
The lower the number the more severe it is.

Short Description
Inexplicably running wild and freezing with 7.0

Long Description
Running on a HP lpr 192RAM 600mz pIII computer.
Running 7.0 (have been a big fan of 6.5.3 which was/is rock solid)
Ran okay for about a week then would randomly do one of several things.

1. used up all the available cpu time and hung in the middle of a query never returning. The postmaster is what would
eatup the CPU  
2. about 1 time out of 10 would claim that the backend wasn't running and if you were in the DB directly and not using
someobject to connect to it it would give you "!" prompt and claim that the backend wasn't working. You would then have
toquit the app and re-login. You wouldn't need to restart the postmaster and logging back in show no ill signs ...
untilabout 10 queries later. 
3. The computer's cpu would get eaten up by the klogd (daemon) and the machine would be slow as hell.
4. Would spawn additonal postmasters that would still be running after killing the one that was eating up the CPU.
Verystrange. 

other notes
-I couldn't dump the db's after we decided to move it back a version.
-this may be unrelated: At one point we decided to restart the machine it was on.  The entire DB file disappeared
includingall DB's. (I had a back up) 
-two sys admins and 6 developers couldn't figure out a pattern with the problem.  Inconsistent but the problem got
worseas time went on. 
-Vaccum didn't help.
-Regressing on the same machine to 6.5.3 has been rock solid ever since which kinda rules out a hardware problem.
-unfortunatly it kinda scared my boss who wants to move my db over to ORACLE (uh! so bloated).  I think that the 6.5.3
versionis restoreing his confidence in it. 

Hope this helps you awesome postgres people.

Julian

Sample Code


No file was uploaded with this report

pgsql-bugs by date:

Previous
From: Peter Eisentraut
Date:
Subject: Re: psql wraps lines at 256 characters
Next
From: pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org
Date:
Subject: very poorly optimised query