Re: Postgres server crash

Richard Huxton <dev@archonet.com> writes:
> Craig A. James wrote:
>> It can't be a coincidence that these were the only two processes in a
>> SELECT operation.  Does the server disable signals at critical points?

> If a "kill -9" as root doesn't get rid of them, I think I'm right in
> saying that it's a kernel-level problem rather than something else.

I didn't actually see Craig say anywhere that he'd tried "kill -9" on
those backends.  If he did and it didn't do anything, then clearly they
were in some kind of uninterruptable wait, which is certainly evidence
of a kernel or hardware issue.  If he didn't do "kill -9" then we don't
really know what the issue was --- it's not improbable that they were
stuck in some loop not containing a CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() test.

            regards, tom lane