What about your mantainance_mem parameter in postgresql.conf? If it is very high, are you sure do you have free memory enough?
I had a similar problem two weeks ago due to this issue and I had to low effective_cache_size in order to get memory enough for vacuum process.
I use postgres-8.3.5. My database has 168 GB in size. Whenever i try to do vacuum full happens the following error:
WARNING: terminating connection because of crash of another server process
DETAIL: The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.
HINT: In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.
vacuumdb: vacuuming of database "acotel_brazil_vas" failed: server closed the connection unexpectedly
This probably means the server terminated abnormally
before or while processing the request.
If i have autovacuum enabled, Do i need to do vacuum full?
Regards,
--
Ygor Degani