Bug #514: Backend crashes periodically

Warren Volz (wrv(at)po(dot)cwru(dot)edu) reports a bug with a severity of 2
The lower the number the more severe it is.

Short Description
Backend crashes periodically

Long Description
I am using Postgres version 7.1.3 for a webmail application. At what seems like random intervals the backend dies with a error status of 11. Whenever the backend dies the mod_perl webserver must be restarted to re-establish the DB connection. The only way I have found to reproduce this problem is to run several consecutive VACUUM commands.

Here are the relevant details:
DB Version: PostgreSQL v7.1.3
OS: Linux 2.4.5 #10 Fri Jun 22 02:20:21 PDT 2001 i686
Startup command: pg_ctl start -D /home/pgsql/data -l /var/local/pgsql/errlog -o "-F"
Changes to config file: max_connections = 64, shared_buffers = 128, wal_files = 16

I managed to capture the core file and recompiled with -g to get the following trace:

Core was generated by `postgres: sis sis [local] UPDATE '.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
(Omitted symbol loading)
#0 ExecEvalVar (variable=0x8239888, econtext=0x8239ed8, isNull=0x823b7c4 "") at execQual.c:323
323 heapTuple = slot->val;

The output in our pglog file is:

Nov 10 20:32:31 wedge postgres[1839]: [1-1] NOTICE: Message from PostgreSQL backend:
Nov 10 20:32:31 wedge postgres[1839]: [1-2] ^IThe Postmaster has informed me that some other backend^Idied abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.
Nov 10 20:32:31 wedge postgres[1839]: [1-3] ^II have rolled back the current transaction and am^Igoing to terminate your database system connection and exit.

Server process (pid 13230) exited with status 11 at Sat Nov 10 13:21:31 2001
Terminating any active server processes...
Server processes were terminated at Sat Nov 10 13:21:31 2001

Sample Code

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