Re: Dying PostgreSQL backend

Hello,

> What I'd recommend doing is gdb'ing the core dump file to get a stack
> trace; that would give us some clue what's wrong. And you could do
> "p debug_query_string" to see what query made it crash.
>
> If you do not find a core file in the database subdirectory
> ($PGDATA/base/yourdbnumber/core) then you are probably running the
> postmaster with "ulimit -c 0" which disables core dumps. Restart
> it with environment "ulimit -c unlimited".

Yes, I fixed that.

Unfortunately I can't gdb to look into the core file:
(gdb) p debug_query_string
No symbol table is loaded. Use the "file" command.
(gdb) file /tmp/core4
"/tmp/core4": not in executable format: File format not recognized
(gdb)

Any ideas?

I did, however, see this in the syslogd log at the time of core dump:

/usr/bin/postmaster child[4014]: starting with (postgres -d16 -v131072
-p mydb )
invoking IpcMemoryCreate(size=2015232)

The first line I had seen before (every few seconds, since my
application makes 5-7 updates per second), but never the second one.
This was the first time.
Maybe it means something to those familiar with the guts of PostgreSQL.

Thanks,
Otis
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