Marcin Krol <mrkafk@gmail.com> writes:
> I use an app (developed by someone else) that uses Postgres 8.3 as
> backend. The app in question starts up for a rather long time, about 10
> minutes, during which Postgres is heavily loaded (several processes each
> eating 50%-100% of CPU on the multicore server).
> However, when I do "select * from pg_stat_activity" during the startup,
> all the connections seem to be idle (see below).
You seem to have missed the load --- most of those connections have been
idle for a minute or two.
> I have found here info that current query stats have to be explicitly
> turned on in postgresql.conf - is that true?
As of 8.3 they're on by default, see track_activities.
regards, tom lane