Hi, probably this is a very frequenfly question... I read archivies of this list but I didn't found a finally solution for this aspect. I'll explain my situation. PSQL version 8.1.3 configuration of fsm,etcc default autovacuum and statistics activated 22 daemons that have a persistent connection to this database(all connection are in "idle"(no transaction opened). this is the vacuum output of a table that it's updated frequently: database=# VACUUM ANALYZE verbose cliente; INFO: vacuuming "public.cliente" INFO: index "cliente_pkey" now contains 29931 row versions in 88 pages DETAIL: 0 index pages have been deleted, 0 are currently reusable. CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec. INFO: index "cliente_login_key" now contains 29931 row versions in 165 pages DETAIL: 0 index pages have been deleted, 0 are currently reusable. CPU 0.01s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec. INFO: "cliente": found 0 removable, 29931 nonremovable row versions in 559 pages DETAIL: 29398 dead row versions cannot be removed yet. There were 9 unused item pointers. 0 pages are entirely empty. CPU 0.01s/0.01u sec elapsed 0.01 sec. INFO: vacuuming "pg_toast.pg_toast_370357" INFO: index "pg_toast_370357_index" now contains 0 row versions in 1 pages DETAIL: 0 index pages have been deleted, 0 are currently reusable. CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec. INFO: "pg_toast_370357": found 0 removable, 0 nonremovable row versions in 0 pages DETAIL: 0 dead row versions cannot be removed yet. There were 0 unused item pointers. 0 pages are entirely empty. CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec. INFO: analyzing "public.cliente" INFO: "cliente": scanned 559 of 559 pages, containing 533 live rows and 29398 dead rows; 533 rows in sample, 533 estimated total rows VACUUM database=# SELECT * from pgstattuple('cliente'); table_len | tuple_count | tuple_len | tuple_percent | dead_tuple_count | dead_tuple_len | dead_tuple_percent | free_space | free_percent -----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+------------------+----------------+--------------------+------------+-------------- 4579328 | 533 | 84522 | 1.85 | 29398 | 4279592 | 93.45 | 41852 | 0.91 (1 row) The performance of this table it's degraded now and autovacuum/vacuum full don't remove these dead tuples. Only if I do a CLUSTER of the table the tuples are removed. The same problem is on other very trafficated tables. I think that the problems probably are: - tune the value of my fsm/etc settings in postgresql.conf but i don't understdand how to tune it correctly. - the persistent connections to this db conflict with the autovacuum but i don't understand why. there are no transaction opened, only connections in "idle" state. Tell me what do you think... Regards, Matteo