gl@xxxxxx wrote:
Hello, I'm experiencing a strange problem with PostgreSQL 7.4.9. One of my database production servers has 2 large databases, it's still possible to connect to them and pass queries, but the pg_database system table is empty, which prohibits such actions as dumping the databases.
I believe that postgresql keeps a plaintext copy of the database table, because it can't access that table until you are connected. I'd suggest you make a backup of you whole data directory immediatly, in case things get worse (e.g. some tries to create a database, and this causes the plaintext copy to be overwritten). One reason the pg_database table seems to be empty could be oid wraparound. Has this database been vacuumed regularly? If not, try doing a "vacuum full" now - according to some earlier discussion about oid wraparound on this list this should fix the problem if the wraparound hasn't happend too long ago. But, in any case, take a (filesystem leven) backup of your database NOW, before you do anything else. greetings, Florian Pflug
