There aren't multiple connections. It is a CGI program. One connection is made when the program starts, and that is all.
I've looked at the log. It shows just what I expect, except that the lookup does not work. 0 rows are returned from the select of the newly inserted id.
I marked it volatile, and still the next time I call the function after the first insert, using the previous new id as as input parameter, it still can't "find" the newly inserted id for the next go-round. Nor can any regular SELECTs in the main program find it.
To expand on my earlier post and to address all the different scenarios proposed, it might to be a good idea to expand on what you are logging. The caveat is whether you are working against a production server or a development. In the development case you would presumably be able to more easily limit the scope of what you are observing. In that case turning up the log_statement to 'all' in postgresql.conf would give you a picture of what is actually hitting the database. So you could see if there where multiple connections happening or multiple transactions in a connection or if different tables where being used, etc. That would help create some anchor points from which you could backwards engineer to possible causes.
