Re: autovacuum not freeing up unused space on 8.3.0

Stuart Brooks <stuartb@cat.co.za> writes:
> Process 2:
>  - running ANALYZE VERBOSE and pg_total_relation_size every second

> The result is that autovacuum appears to be canceled.

Yes, that will pretty much guarantee that an autovacuum is never able to
complete...

> What concerns me is that once the size has grown, even a VACUUM FULL
> doesn't recover the space. Regular external VACUUMs keep the table at
> around 10MB but if I use autovacuum and it grows to 40MB, a VACUUM FULL
> will only get it down to 35MB. Is it possible that a canceled autovacuum
> could result in permanently lost space?

Are you measuring index as well as table size?  VACUUM FULL is no good
at compacting indexes.

            regards, tom lane