Startup death!

From time to time on postgres 7.2 or postgres 7.2.1 we get a case when we
have the maximum number of postgres processes all taking all available CPU
shared among themselves stuck in "startup" mode (as "ps -fwwwwu postgres"
shows).

The only cure is to is to do a shutdown (which doesn't work) and then kill
-9 one of the stuck-in-startup processes upon which they all die and it
shuts down properly within seconds.

We then restart postgres and all is well.

The only extra info I have is that under 7.2 (not 7.2.1) after such
circumstances, if I then did opened a psql process on that DB it would take
many (perhaps 10 seconds) before psql gave me a prompt. If before this time
I open the DB to many clients they all get stuck in startup again, but if I
wait till after this prompt then they do not get stuck in startup again.
In contrast 7.2.1 psql client gives the prompt right away but the first
simple query (select * from channelregion; - a few hundred row) takes maybe
5 seconds the first time.

Why are all these processes stuck in startup and taking as much cpu as they
can?

Sam
_____

Samuel Liddicott
Support Consultant
sam(at)ananova(dot)com <mailto:sam(at)ananova(dot)com>
Direct Dial: +44 (0)113 367 4523
Fax: +44 (0)113 367 4680
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