Re: Crash after VACUUM FULL cancel

Hardwick, Joe wrote:

> We have a cronjob that runs nightly to do the VACUUM FULL ANALYZE on a
> few tables in each schema and occasionally we'll cancel one if they take
> longer than usual to run and block our morning loads.. This is the first
> time Postgres has had any trouble with it.   Is cancelling a full vacuum
> a bad idea?

Yes -- this is a known problem but since VACUUM FULL is deprecated, the
most likely outcome is that it won't get fixed.  Just don't cancel it.

You don't need VACUUM FULL anyway in most cases -- plain VACUUM ANALYZE
should be more than enough.  For the rare cases that it's not, you can
use CLUSTER to compress the dead space.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support