Can't terminate hung COPY - Mailing list pgsql-general

PostgreSQL 8.4.16 on CentOS 5.9.

I've run into a situation where executing a \COPY from psql will hang
and at that point it's impossible to terminate the COPY command.

I've tried pg_cancel_backend and pg_terminalte_backend - even sending
the process itself a TERM signal.

Sending the process KILL works, but of course that restarts the entire
server which is far from ideal.

Any idea on how to cleanly terminal the offending process at this point?

Any idea on what may cause \COPY to hang and how to prevent it?

Thanks

Dave