Re: 8.3.1 autovacuum stopped doing anything months ago

On Friday 19 September 2008 00:23:34 Jeffrey Baker wrote:
> Anyway, I have some issues.  One, of course, is that the autovacuum should
> not have been deadlocked or otherwise stalled like that.  Perhaps it needs
> a watchdog of some kind.  Has anyone else experienced an issue like that in
> 8.3.1?  The only thing I can see in the release notes that indicates this
> problem may have been fixed is the following:
>

We have several checks in the check_postgres script which are in this area 
(warnings for approaching autovacuum freeze max age, warnings when approching 
xid wrap, monitoring of tables analyze/vacuum activity) Those can at least 
alert you to problems before they become too big a hassle. 

> Secondly, there really does need to be an autovacuum=off,really,thanks so
> that my maintenance can proceed without competition for i/o resources.  Is
> there any way to make that happen?  Is my SIGSTOP idea dangerous?

If Heikis solution applies, it's better (see also vacuum_freeze_min_age) , but 
if its too late for that, you can go into single user mode, which will  
prevent autovacuum; it's a bit more heavy handed though. 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL