Re: Out of memory (Failed on request size 24)

"Rob Owen" <Rob.Owen@sas.com> writes:
> PostgreSQL 8.0.3 running on AIX 5.3 (same thing happens on 5.1 though).
> DBMS was running fine for some months but now one of the databases isn't accessible. Any help would be greatly
appreciated. 

Just one database?  Sounds like it might be corrupt data in that
database's system catalogs.  Can you get a stack trace from the point
of the error to help us narrow it down?

The way I usually debug startup-time failures is:

    export PGOPTIONS="-W 30"
    psql ...

Now I have 30 seconds to identify the PID of the backend process in
another window and do (as the postgres user)

    gdb /path/to/postgres PID

Once you've got gdb control of the backend, do

    gdb> break errfinish
    gdb> cont

... wait for the timeout to finish elapsing, if needed ...  Once
gdb reports that the breakpoint has been reached, say

    gdb> bt
    ... useful info here...
    gdb> cont

            regards, tom lane