that's strange; from the source code I would think that it will retry indefinitely.
(
http://doxygen.postgresql.org/pgarch_8c-source.html )
I have also tested this with archive_command = "/bin/false" and it works as expected.
archiver does 3 retries, then sleep for 60 seconds hardcoded timeout.
2011-01-04 18:11:41.407 CET [2375] WARNING: transaction log file "000000010000000000000008" could not be archived: too many failures
2011-01-04 18:12:41.474 CET [2375] LOG: archive command failed with exit code 1
2011-01-04 18:12:41.474 CET [2375] DETAIL: The failed archive command was: /bin/false
2011-01-04 18:12:42.478 CET [2375] LOG: archive command failed with exit code 1
2011-01-04 18:12:42.478 CET [2375] DETAIL: The failed archive command was: /bin/false
2011-01-04 18:12:43.484 CET [2375] LOG: archive command failed with exit code 1
2011-01-04 18:12:43.484 CET [2375] DETAIL: The failed archive command was: /bin/false
2011-01-04 18:12:43.484 CET [2375] WARNING: transaction log file "000000010000000000000008" could not be archived: too many failures
(and so on...)