Re: zombie primary key lurches out of database to devour the brains of the unwary

Kevin Murphy <murphy(at)genome(dot)chop(dot)edu> writes:
> I have a primary key that I can't destroy and can't create. One weird
> symptom is that when I use \d in psql to attempt to display the
> constraint, there is no output at all!

That's strange. Maybe some sort of catalog corruption? Try "psql -E"
to see the queries issued by \d, and then execute them by hand to see
what you get.

> egenome_test=# alter table snp_main_chr22 drop constraint
> snp_main_chr22_pk;
> ERROR: constraint "snp_main_chr22_pk" does not exist

Note that this only says the table doesn't have a constraint by that
name. There could for instance be a non-constraint-associated index
or table by that name. I'm not sure why you're not seeing it in \d,
though, if that were the case.

regards, tom lane