Re: Stack-based tracking of per-node WAL/buffer usage

On 19/03/2026 02:45, Lukas Fittl wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 4:36 PM Lukas Fittl <lukas(at)fittl(dot)com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 1:49 PM Zsolt Parragi <zsolt(dot)parragi(at)percona(dot)com> wrote:
>>> There seems to be one more bug in this:
>>>
>>> 1. EXPLAIN ANALYZE fires a trigger
>>> 2. The trigger function throws ERROR, InstrStopTrigger never runs
>>> 3. ResOwnerReleaseInstrumentation runs but only checks
>>> unfinalized_children, not triggers
>>> 4. InstrStopFinalize discards the trigger entry
>>> 5. Trigger instrumentation information shows 0
>>
>> Hmm, so I think you're correct that a trigger function error would
>> cause any stack-based instrumentation from the trigger to get lost.
>>
>> In practice that doesn't matter today, since triggers never capture
>> WAL/buffer usage data (only timing),
>
> After twisting and turning this in my head more, I realize that's
> actually not correct - as it stands, trigger instrumentation is
> inheriting the instrumentation options from the overall query, and so
> that will cause a typical EXPLAIN (ANALYZE) to also capture Buffer/WAL
> usage for triggers - it just won't be shown in EXPLAIN.
>
> Since its not used in practice, we could fix that by explicitly
> setting INSTRUMENT_TIMER for triggers, but AFAIR Andres had noted on a
> prior iteration that special casing this doesn't seem right, since we
> should probably output buffer/WAL usage for triggers anyway.
>
> So I guess that brings us back to, we should fix it with one of the
> ways I mentioned. FWIW, I was able to create a test case in the
> pg_session_buffer_usage module to that effect, so there is indeed a
> current issue where activity during triggers gets lost and won't be
> added to the overall totals on abort.

I'm looking at this finalize at resowner part of this patch, and this
maybe a stupid question, but:

Why does the instrumentation need to be "finalized" on abort? If you run
EXPLAIN ANALYZE and the query aborts, you don't get to see the stats anyway.

- Heikki