Re: [GENERAL] How to remove VACUUM lock?

On Fri, 22 May 1998, Philip Bierhoff wrote:

> Hi guyz,
>
> Because of some strange reason my VACUUM command resulted in a complete
> halt of the database PostgreSQL 6.3 on Linux 2.0.18 (already a simple
> select * resulted in a halt). I had to manually close the postmaster and
> all the locked backends before I could access my database again.
>
> Now the select * query works again, but issuing "vacuum" gives:
>
> Welcome to the POSTGRESQL interactive sql monitor:
> Please read the file COPYRIGHT for copyright terms of POSTGRESQL
>
> type \? for help on slash commands
> type \q to quit
> type \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
> You are currently connected to the database: komal
>
> komal=> vacuum;
> ERROR: can't create lock file -- another vacuum cleaner running?
> komal=> vacuum;
> NOTICE: CreatePortal: portal <vacuum> already exists
> ERROR: can't create lock file -- another vacuum cleaner running?
> komal=>
>
> What can I do to remove this portal ?

If you are 100% certain that there is no other vacuum process
running on that Database, go into the data/base/<database> directory and
remove the file 'pg_vlock' that you'll find in there...

If you aren't 100% certain, shut down the server before you
remove the lock file...

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org secondary: scrappy(at){freebsd|postgresql}.org