Re: "Tuple is too big" - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Paulo Jan
Subject Re: "Tuple is too big"
Date
Msg-id 39488EA3.5300565D@digital.ddnet.es
Whole thread Raw
In response to Want to run PostgreSQL on new associative memory technology  ("Melchior, Tim" <Melchior@UTMC.Aeroflex.com>)
List pgsql-general
Steve Wolfe wrote:
>
>    After moving a database to a new machine, I tried a vaccum analyze, and
> get "ERROR:  Tuple is too big: size 8180, max size 8140".
>
>   I know that there's a limit on the tuple size and all of that - my
> question is:  How do I fix it?  Vaccum analyze barfs, as does trying "\d
> table name".  I tried it on both machines, and the same thing.
>
>   I suppose that I could write a parser to go through the pg_dump and find
> offending fields, but I'm hoping that there's a way for PostgreSQL to fix
> it.  If there isn't a way for it to fix data that it's created, that's
> scary. : )  It is postgresql 6.5.3.
>


    Me too.
    It's been happening for the last weeks with a database that didn't have
any problems before. By experimenting, I've observed that this behaviour
disappeared when I removed a certain table that another co-worker
created; the problem is that such table doesn't have any tuple bigger
than the max. supported size. Looking at the data stored in it, I don't
see anything bigger than 8000 bytes (more or less) either.
    We are using that table (and others) to store texts, in field defined
with varchar(8000). I suppose that if somebody had tried to insert a
text bigger than that, the database would have refused with an error...
Just in case, is there any character that, when inserted, will make the
tuple grow beyond the maximum size, while still taking technically just
one byte? (Some of the inserted texts were Front Page-generated HTML,
and had all kinds of tabs, return carriages and such).



                        Paulo Jan.
                        DDnet.

pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: Tatsuo Ishii
Date:
Subject: Re: Large objects
Next
From: Hrvoje Niksic
Date:
Subject: Re: Dropping tables