Re: What to do after an "ERROR: out of memory"

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: "John Cheng" <chonger(dot)cheng(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: What to do after an "ERROR: out of memory"
Date: 2008-07-29 15:42:41
Message-ID: 11380.1217346161@sss.pgh.pa.us
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"John Cheng" <chonger(dot)cheng(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> We were updating a large set of data (executing a stored procedure
> against a large set of data in one statement/transaction) while
> autovacuum was running.

> The resulting message looked like:

> 2008-07-28 21:18:08 CDT CONTEXT: automatic vacuum of table
> "databasename._lms.sl_log_2" TopMemoryContext: 154528 total in 18
> blocks; 19104 free (62 chunks); 135424 used
> ....
> 2008-07-28 21:28:53 CDT database_other ERROR: out of memory
> 2008-07-28 21:48:13 CDT ERROR:
> canceling autovacuum task
> ...

Given the time delays there, I don't think the out-of-memory in the
update had anything to do with the autovacuum cancel. Evidently
something sent the autovac process a SIGINT, but it wasn't as a result
of the memory issue. Perhaps someone just mis-aimed a pg_cancel_backend
call?

regards, tom lane

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