Re: Further info : Very high load average but no cpu utilization ?

"Rajesh Kumar Mallah." <mallah(at)trade-india(dot)com> writes:
> [root(at)linux10320 root2]# ps auxwww| grep post
> postgres 1131 0.0 0.0 139424 4 ? D May1004/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postmaster
> postgres 1132 0.0 0.0 140412 4 ? D May10 0:13 postgres: stats buffer process
> postgres 1133 0.0 0.0 139576 4 ? S May10 0:18 postgres: stats collector process
> postgres 8046 0.0 0.0 238712 4 ? D 00:25 0:13 postgres: tradein tradein_clients 130.94.20.27 SELECT
> postgres 8089 0.0 0.0 139812 4 ? D 00:26 0:00 postgres: checkpoint subprocess
> postgres 11442 0.0 0.0 218152 4 ? D 04:25 0:03 postgres: tradein tradein_clients 130.94.20.27 SELECT
> postgres 15453 0.1 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:17 0:09 [postmaster <defunct>]
> postgres 15455 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:17 0:00 [postmaster <defunct>]
> postgres 15456 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:18 0:00 [postmaster <defunct>]
> postgres 15457 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:19 0:00 [postmaster <defunct>]
> postgres 15462 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 08:20 0:01 [postmaster <defunct>]

I think your postmaster is stuck; it should have reaped those defunct
subprocesses instantly. Given that you also seem to have a stuck
checkpoint process (8 hours to run a checkpoint?) there is probably
something hosed in the interprocess communication logic, but it's hard
to guess what from this amount of info.

At this point probably your best bet is to kill all the running postgres
processes (try SIGTERM first, then SIGKILL if that doesn't work) and
launch a postmaster from a fresh start. Don't forget the ulimit this
time.

regards, tom lane