"Dan Armbrust" <daniel.armbrust.list@gmail.com> writes:
>> What sort of indexes are there on this table?
> [ just btrees ]
Okay, that lets the GIN stuff off the hook.
I wonder whether you saw some variant of the deadlock reported in bug
#3883 --- see discussion here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2008-01/msg00873.php
The only known way of getting into that problem is fixed in 8.3,
but a potential for silent deadlock is definitely still there.
I don't however have any idea how such a deadlock could occur without
at least some processes showing as 'waiting' in pg_stat_activity.
Do you have any idea what the transactions that were blocked at
COMMIT had been doing?
Are there any foreign key constraints leading *to* this table?
regards, tom lane