[GENERAL] Synchronous Commit, WAL archiving and statement_timeout

Hello,

I noticed something strange and I would like to understand what's happening.

I have the following environment:

  - 2 PostgreSQL instance running in hot-standby with synchronous commit activated.

    (further called Master & Slave)

  - The archiving of the WAL files is activated on the master running every 5 minutes

  - Slave is down

I set the statement_timeout inside my ~/.psqlrc:

$ cat ~/.psqlrc

set statement_timeout = 1;

commit;

When running an UPDATE statement (via psql) on the master, it hangs (psql seems to

wait a response from the slave) ignoring any value I set in my .psqlrc and the update is

done and written on the Master. Furthermore if I try (doing the same things in a small

script with a timeout on the call to PQexec) to make a call to PQcancel it does nothing

on the Master.

I expected the statement to timeout because the synchronous_commit wouldn't work

since the Slave is down while rollbacking on the Master.