Re: WAL Archiving problem

Tom Lane writes:
> Norberto Delle <betodelle@gmail.com> writes:
>> I have a PostgreSQL 8.2.4 installation running under Windows XP with WAL
>> archiving activated.
>> But at some point Postgres began to ask to archive a WAL segment that
>> isn't in the pg_xlog directory. I thought that a segment that isn't
>> succesfully
>> archived should remain in the pg_xlog directory, or am i wrong?
>
> Do you have the postmaster log from around the time that this started
> happening?  I'm wondering about a file rename() failing, or some such.
>
> What files do you have, exactly, in pg_xlog and pg_xlog/archive_status?
> It'd be useful to see their modification timestamps as well as their
> names.
Hi all

Thank you Tom, for the quick answer

Here is the part of the postmaster log where something wrong happened:

-- This sequence of WAL files was originated by a restore (COPY FROM stdin)

2007-08-20 09:09:40 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000DC"
2007-08-20 09:10:27 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000DD"
2007-08-20 09:11:07 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000DE"
2007-08-20 09:11:33 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000DF"
2007-08-20 09:11:38 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E0"
2007-08-20 09:11:42 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E1"
2007-08-20 09:11:46 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E2"
2007-08-20 09:11:50 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E3"
2007-08-20 09:11:53 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E4"
2007-08-20 09:11:57 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E5"
2007-08-20 09:12:01 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E6"
2007-08-20 09:12:09 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E7"
2007-08-20 09:12:20 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E8"
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  could not receive data from client: Unknown
winsock error 10061
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  could not receive data from client: Unknown
winsock error 10061
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  unexpected EOF on client connection
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  unexpected EOF on client connection
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  could not receive data from client: Unknown
winsock error 10061
2007-08-20 09:12:21 LOG:  unexpected EOF on client connection

-- Note that here the WAL file '0000000100000002000000E9' was archived
(Postgres thinks it was,
-- because it's not present in the backup directory)

2007-08-20 09:12:33 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E9"
2007-08-20 09:12:46 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000EA"
2007-08-20 09:12:57 LOG:  archived transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000EB"

-- And here Postgres is asking to archive '0000000100000002000000E9' again

2007-08-20 09:22:29 LOG:  archive command "C:\Imob\IMOBBackup\bbp.exe
-wal="pg_xlog\0000000100000002000000E9"" failed: return code 13
2007-08-20 09:22:31 LOG:  archive command "C:\Imob\IMOBBackup\bbp.exe
-wal="pg_xlog\0000000100000002000000E9"" failed: return code 13
2007-08-20 09:22:32 LOG:  archive command "C:\Imob\IMOBBackup\bbp.exe
-wal="pg_xlog\0000000100000002000000E9"" failed: return code 13
2007-08-20 09:22:32 WARNING:  transaction log file
"0000000100000002000000E9" could not be archived: too many failures


Looking in bbp.exe log i realized that the archive command fails because
pg_xlog\0000000100000002000000E9 is not found,
and looking in the pg_xlog\archive_status directory there is a file
named '0000000100000002000000E9.XXXXX.ready'.
More information will be difficult to obtain because a don't have direct
access to the server.

I hope this information helps