Standby got invalid primary checkpoint after crashed right after promoted. - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Hi, pgsql-hackers,

I think I found a case that database is not recoverable, would you please give a look?

Here is how it happens:

- setup primary/standby
- do a lots INSERT at primary
- create a checkpoint at primary
- wait until standby start doing restart point, it take about 3mins syncing buffers to complete
- before the restart point update ControlFile, promote the standby, that changed ControlFile
  ->state to DB_IN_PRODUCTION, this will skip update to ControlFile, leaving the ControlFile
  ->checkPoint pointing to a removed file
- before the promoted standby request the post-recovery checkpoint (fast promoted), 
  one backend crashed, it will kill other server process, so the post-recovery checkpoint skipped
- the database restart startup process, which report: "could not locate a valid checkpoint record"

I attached a test to reproduce it, it does not fail every time, it fails every 10 times to me.
To increase the chance CreateRestartPoint skip update ControlFile and to simulate a crash,
the patch 0001 is needed.

Best Regard.

Harry Hao