On Fri, 4 Apr 2008, Tom Lane wrote:
(And you still didn't tell me what the actual failure case was.)
Database stops checkpointing. WAL files pile up. In the middle of backup, system finally dies, and when it starts recovery there's a bad record in the WAL files--which there are now thousands of to apply, and the bad one is 4 hours of replay in. Believe it or not, it goes downhill from there.
It's what kicked off the first step that's the big mystery. The only code path I thought of that can block checkpoints like this is when the archive_command isn't working anymore, and that wasn't being used. Given some of the other corruption found later and the bad memory issues discovered, a bit flipping in the "do I need to checkpoint now?" code or data seems just as likely as any other explanation.
-- * Greg Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD -- Sent via pgsql-patches mailing list (pgsql-patches@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-patches
