Re: FATAL: catalog is missing 1 attribute(s) for relid 16396

"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
> What the client did was a 'delete from pg_attribute where ... ' ...

[ blink... ] Well, that sort of thing is definitely a candidate for the
Darwin Award, but what exactly was the WHERE clause?

> The database is a 7.4.2 one ... my first thought was one of the older
> standbys ... rebuild the schema and move the data files into place over
> top of that ... but of course, 7.3 and beyond are OID based vs name based
> files, so that doesn't work, unless there is some way of figuring out
> which file in the old directory corresponds to while oid-file, and without
> beign able to get into the database to read the system files, thats a wee
> bit difficult ...

I think that people have once or twice gotten themselves out of that
but it ain't easy. Give us full details.

> I'm still searching the 'net to see if there is somethign that I've
> overlooked ... but everything so far is drawing a deadend ... can someone
> suggest a web page I should read, a tool I could use, or something, to get
> the data out of this, that I'm not finding? Or some way of 'fixing' relid
> 16396? :)

[ select 16396::regclass... ] pg_am? You may be in luck, because that
is the one solitary system catalog that no one ever changes. If that's
all that got hit you might have a chance. What I'm wondering is just
exactly what the extent of the damage was.

regards, tom lane