Re: COPY error: pqReadData() -- backend closed the channel unexpectedly

Lee Joramo <lee.list@joramo.com> writes:
> [PostgreSQL 6.5.2 on powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc 2.95.2]

Hm.  Did you compile at -O0?  Pre-7.1 PG is known to have a lot of
problems on PPC if compiled with any optimization at all.

> The 'classifieds.dat' consists of about 2200 lines. I have determined
> that the problem is caused by just the following line (literal tabs have
> been replaced with <TAB>):

Are there any lines with more than 2700 characters worth of ad copy?
Pre-7.1 PG has a limit of 1/3 page or about 2700 bytes for any indexed
column ... and 6.5 tends to fall over rather than give an error if you
exceed the limit :-(

This particular line is well below that, but you could still see the
problem appear or disappear depending on which entries happen to fall
on the same disk page, so subtracting a line that isn't directly causing
the problem might be enough to mask the bug.

If that's not it, I'm not sure ... but I'd still recommend updating to
7.0.3 just on general principles.

> I also learned in the archive that when a 'backend closed'
> error occurs I should be able to find a 'core' file located in the
> database's directory. But I have not found a core file.

On many Linuxes, processes started from boot scripts are by default
started with "ulimit -c 0", which prevents creation of core files.
You may need to say "ulimit -c unlimited" in the postmaster startup
script to allow creation of corefiles.

            regards, tom lane