Perhaps I misunderstand something here. Autovac demon is configged on and working but was using standard settings which are commented out in postgresql.conf. The context field of pg_settings view suggests that the scale factor values and other autovac settings can be changed with SIGHUP. Uncommenting the settings in postgresql.conf and giving the new values, then followed by a pg_reload_conf() call however and I see no change in the settings. Also did pg_ctl reload for good measure and nothing changed. Thanks -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerry Sievers 732 365-2844 (work) Production Database Administrator 305 321-1144 (mobil WWW E-Commerce Consultant