Uninitialized pages notices - Mailing list pgsql-admin

From Timothy D McKernan
Subject Uninitialized pages notices
Date
Msg-id 3DCB41CF.1070507@dyrectmedia.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Vacuum return codes (vacuum as db integrity check?)  ("Stephane Charette" <stephanecharette@telus.net>)
Responses Re: Uninitialized pages notices  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-admin
Our client is running a large-ish database, and has infrequently been
getting the following messages:

Nov  6 04:17:09 dolidb-n1 logger: NOTICE:  Rel pg_type: Uninitialized
page 6 - fixing
Nov  6 04:17:09 dolidb-n1 logger: NOTICE:  Rel pg_type: Uninitialized
page 7 - fixing
Nov  6 04:17:09 dolidb-n1 logger: NOTICE:  Rel pg_type: Uninitialized
page 8 - fixing
Nov  6 04:17:09 dolidb-n1 logger: NOTICE:  Rel pg_type: Uninitialized
page 9 - fixing
Nov  6 04:17:09 dolidb-n1 logger: NOTICE:  Rel pg_type: Uninitialized
page 10 - fixing

This goes on for about 2000 lines.  A google search found Tom Lane
telling someone with this symptom that they might have a serious
hardware problem.  However, _that_ person was getting these messages on
a consistent basis, whereas we haven't seen this message in about 4
months, and then all of a sudden the other night during a nightly vacuum
it popped up.

I'd like to know what this means to our system - what causes an
uninitialized page?  What could cause it to be so infrequent?

Here are our system details:
postgre: 7.2.3 (~4GB in size)
os: Redhat 7.1sbe (Seawolf)
kernel: 2.4.9-12smp
ram: ~1GB ECC

Thanks,
Tim


--
Dyrect Media Group
P.O. Box 486
6000 Goodrich Rd
Clarence Center, NY  14032-0486

OFFICE: 716-504-1141 ext 208
CELL: 716-510-2451
AIM: somecallmetim100


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