Thread: Uninitialized page - fixing

Hi,

recently we are suffering from repeated

WARNING:  Rel pg_toast_77798203: Uninitialized page 25489 - fixing

entries in the logfile.

We had this problem 2 weeks ago (especially on some read often write often
tables), along with some more severe problems (pg_clog not found etc..). We
assumed hardware failure and moved to another box. It all went fine for 1
week, but now those uninitialized page messages come up again.

Our system is a dual p3 1 ghz, 2gb ram, Debian woody, kernel 2.4.20,
postgresql 7.3.2, database size is about 2 gb.

These problems seem to occur under heavy load only. We vacuum regularly
(every 5-15 minutes).

If you need any more details please say so.

tia

Regards,
Bjoern

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Bj=F6rn_Metzdorf?= <bm@turtle-entertainment.de> writes:
> recently we are suffering from repeated
> WARNING:  Rel pg_toast_77798203: Uninitialized page 25489 - fixing

Hmm.  There is a known mechanism for that to happen in 7.2 and before,
but not in 7.3.  Can you see any pattern in the messages?

            regards, tom lane

>> recently we are suffering from repeated
>> WARNING:  Rel pg_toast_77798203: Uninitialized page 25489 - fixing
>
> Hmm.  There is a known mechanism for that to happen in 7.2 and before,
> but not in 7.3.  Can you see any pattern in the messages?

Here is another example:

2003-06-05 21:27:08 WARNING:  Rel psessions: Uninitialized page 185 - fixing

psessions is often read from and written to, but it is not very big
(thousands, perhaps tenthousands of rows) and it is regularly vacuumed
(every 5 to 15 minutes). These messages appear under heavy load only (more
than 700 concurrent connections to the backend).

Since then (2003-06-05) we didn't get this message again.

I cannot see any pattern there, but at least with our old server, those
messages came just ahead some hardware problems (pg_clog problems, tables
were gone). But our new server right now is running very smoothly.

I will upgrade to 7.3.3 as soon as I find some time.

Regards,
Bjoern