On 9/28/16 10:22 AM, Robert Haas wrote: > On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 9:14 AM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: >> Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> writes: >>> psql tends to do things like this: >>> rhaas=# select * from pg_stat_activity; >>> FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command >>> server closed the connection unexpectedly >>> This probably means the server terminated abnormally >>> before or while processing the request. >> >>> Basically everything psql has to say about this is a lie: >> >> I cannot get terribly excited about this. What you seem to be proposing >> is that psql try to intuit the reason for connection closure from the >> last error message it got, but that seems likely to lead to worse lies >> than printing a boilerplate message. >> >> I could go along with just dropping the last sentence ("This probably...") >> if the last error we got was FATAL level. I don't find "unexpectedly" >> to be problematic here: from the point of view of psql, and probably >> of its user, the shutdown *was* unexpected. > > I don't care very much whether we try to intuit the reason for > connection closure or not; it could be done, but I don't feel that it > has to be done. My bigger point is that currently psql speculates > that the reason for *every* connection closure is abnormal server > termination, which is actually a very rare event. > > It may have been common when that message was added. > 1a17447be1186fdd36391c58a2a0209f613d89c4 changed the wording this > message in 2001, and the original message seems to date to > 011ee13131f6fa2f6dbafd3827b70d051cb28f64 in 1996. And my guess is at > that time the server probably did just roll over and die with some > regularity. But today it usually doesn't. It's neither helpful nor > good PR for libpq to guess that the most likely cause of a server > disconnection is server unreliability. > > I have seen actual instances of customers getting upset by this > message even though the server had been shut down quite cleanly. The > message got into a logfile and induced minor panic. Fortunately, I > have not seen this happen lately.
+1 for making this error message less frightening. I have also had to explain it away on occasion. -- -David da...@pgmasters.net -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers