Floris,
> The website this setup is for has been running various previous versions
> of PostgreSQL with fsync=off since 2005.
> So I still expect it to work.
You've been lucky, that's all.
Our documentation has been clear, back to version 7.0, that turning
fsync=off carries the risk that you will have to recreate your entire
database in the event of unexpected shutdown. That's not new.
So, the operative question is: was 8.4 shut down with -immediate or
otherwise unexpectedly? If so, then we don't have a bug. If 8.4 was
never shut down, then we have some strange behavior which bears looking
into. And you've found a wierd corner case, which is what we count on
our users for.
Thanks for testing.
--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com