Re: server closed the connection unexpectedly

["Mark Greenbank" <mark.greenbank@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've enabled logging, having upgraded to 7.3.4 (since that was the simplest yum updated :) and I see the following messages:

FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
LOG:  server process (pid 26548) was terminated by signal 11
LOG:  terminating any other active server processes
FATAL:  The database system is in recovery mode
WARNING:  Message from PostgreSQL backend:
        The Postmaster has informed me that some other backend
        died abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.
        I have rolled back the current transaction and am
        going to terminate your database system connection and exit.
        Please reconnect to the database system and repeat your query.
LOG:  all server processes terminated; reinitializing shared memory and semaphores
LOG:  database system was interrupted at 2006-10-06 11:34:17 EDT
LOG:  checkpoint record is at D/72C79A94
LOG:  redo record is at D/72C79A94; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE
LOG:  next transaction id: 74267383; next oid: 89469046
LOG:  database system was not properly shut down; automatic recovery in progress
LOG:  ReadRecord: record with zero length at D/72C79AD4
LOG:  redo is not required
FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
FATAL:  The database system is starting up
FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
FATAL:  The database system is starting up
FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
FATAL:  The database system is starting up
FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
FATAL:  The database system is starting up
FATAL:  unsupported frontend protocol
FATAL:  The database system is starting up
LOG:  database system is ready

The worrying bit (at least to my uneducated eye) is the line:
LOG:  ReadRecord: record with zero length at D/72C79AD4

Thanks,
Mark

On 10/6/06, Mark Greenbank <mark.greenbank@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the reply -- yeah, I know it's and old version but management has been reluctant to update a production database.
As for the logs, I looked around an didn't see any. pg_ctl start is not using the -l option for logging and output is redirected to /dev/null :(

Anyway, now I have some room to update, which leads to the following questions:

1) I'm assuming that if I update 7.3.2 to 7.3.15 I can leave the data in place (that is, without doing a dump/restore) -- is this correct?
2) If I up upgrade to 8.x can just copy the data files or do I have to do a dump/restore? The latter would be hard since pg_dump also fails on this same table and pg_dump doesn't seem to have an 'ignore table' option.

Mark

On 10/6/06, Richard Huxton < dev@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mark Greenbank wrote:
> # psql --version
> psql (PostgreSQL) 7.3.2

May I be the first to say "GODS ALIVE MAN! WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING
RUNNING 7.3.2!". Even if you can't upgrade from 7.3, the latest release
is 7.3.15 - that's 13 sets of bug-fixes you're ignoring. There's a
passing chance one of those bugs might be responsible for your error.

> contains support for command-line editing
>
> # psql
> mncis2-rel=# select count(*) from members;
> count
> -------
> 22676
> (1 row)
>
> mncis2-rel=# select count(*) from email_queue;
> server closed the connection unexpectedly
>        This probably means the server terminated abnormally
>        before or while processing the request.
> The connection to the server was lost. Attempting reset: Failed.

What do the logs say?

--
   Richard Huxton
   Archonet Ltd