Thread: Killing an offending process without restarting Postgresql safe?

Killing an offending process without restarting Postgresql safe?

From
"Philippe Lang"
Date:
Hi,

I added an index on a Postgresql 7.4 database this morning (about 50
concurrent users), and then deleted it. I noticed the delete took too
much time to complete, so I logged on the server, and did a "ps -afxu".
I saw a process was stuck in a "drop index waiting" state, and several
others in a "select waiting" state.

I killed the "drop index waiting" process, and all the "select waiting"
processes disappeared. Then I dropped the index again, and it succeeded
this time.

I never restarted the database server at any time. Is that safe, or is
it a good thing to restart the server in such cases?

Best regards,

Philippe Lang