Re: tuplesort error from create index (?) - Mailing list pgsql-general

Howdy:

I apologize for not being complete.  This is the version
we're running:

[snip]

[shaunn@hmp init.d]$ psql -V
psql (PostgreSQL) 7.1.3
contains readline, history support
Portions Copyright (c) 1996-2001, PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Portions Copyright (c) 1996 Regents of the University of California
Read the file COPYRIGHT or use the command \copyright to see the
usage and distribution terms.

[/snip]

Our resources:

[snip]

[shaunn@hmp cron.daily]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1545016    1473492      71524          0      79980    1273248
-/+ buffers/cache:     120264    1424752
Swap:      1044184      49984     994200

[/snip]

This is the amount of disk we have:

[snip]

[shaunn@hmp bin]$ df -x smbfs
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6              4192800   2601592   1591208  62% /
/dev/hda1              2063504   1804692    153992  92% /old
/dev/md0             175841284  18931000 156910284  11% /raid
/dev/hdb1             30014264  25955764   4058500  86% /samba

[/snip]

The /raid filesystem is where Postgres lives.  The /raid filesystem
(as you may have guessed) is also a RAID 5 fileset.

I can dump the table (actually, it gets dropped and recreated every
week or so), but right now, I only have the one database. I will
give you all the information I have (which includes trying to
recreate the table in a new database).

Thanks!

-X

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 1:35 PM
To: Johnson, Shaunn
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] tuplesort error from create index (?)

"Johnson, Shaunn" <SJohnson6@bcbsm.com> writes:
> I am running Postgres 7.1 on Mandrake Linux 8.0,
> kernel version 2.4.16.

Could you upgrade to PG 7.1.3 and see if the problem is still there?

> I am trying to create an index on a table:
> database=> create index key_i on class (contract, memberid, date)
> and I get the following error:
> ERROR:  tuplesort: unexpected end of data

Weird.  Is it possible you are running out of disk space?  (The sort to
create the index is probably using temporary disk files.)  I should
think that you'd get an error saying that, though, not this error.

If you have lots of disk space, it'd be worth trying to pg_dump the
table, load it into a newly created database, and see if the error can
be reproduced on that fresh copy.  Knowing whether the error can be
reproduced outside your existing database would be helpful.

                        regards, tom lane

PS: does anyone know if there are any serious bugs in Linux 2.4.16?
I recall hearing about some hasty updates of recent kernels, but am
not up-to-date on which versions to avoid.