Hi,
I'm seeing a 8.3 database whose autovacuum-initiated vacuums are being
cancelled and I am not sure of the cause. I am wondering if a HOT
cleanup round on a page could try to acquire locks on it that would
conflict with autovacuum (basically anything that conflicts with a
vacuum lock). This would cause autovacuum to commit hara-kiri.
If the table is frequently updated and HOT is invoked often, this could
be very frequent. The auto-cancel feature of autovacuum is IMHO, in
this case, not welcome. Perhaps we could teach autovac to not cancel
itself if the other locker is a HOT page prune?
--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.