Re: ERROR: out of memory DETAIL: Failed on request of size ???

I've tried any work_mem value from 1gb all the way up to 40gb, with no effect on the error.  I'd like to think of this problem as a server process memory (not the server's buffers) or client process memory issue, primarily because when we tested the error there was no other load whatsoever.  Unfortunately,  the error doesn't say what kinda memory ran out.

--- Original Message ---

From: "bricklen" <bricklen@gmail.com>
Sent: November 18, 2013 7:25 PM
To: "Brian Wong" <bwong64@hotmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] ERROR: out of memory DETAIL: Failed on request of size ???

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Brian Wong <bwong64@hotmail.com> wrote:

We'd like to seek out your expertise on postgresql regarding this error that we're getting in an analytical database.

Some specs:
proc: Intel Xeon X5650 @ 2.67Ghz dual procs 6-core, hyperthreading on.
memory: 48GB
OS: Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.3

postgresql version: 9.1.9

shared_buffers: 18GB

After doing a lot of googling, I've tried setting FETCH_COUNT on psql AND/OR setting work_mem.  I'm just not able to work around this issue, unless if I take most of the MAX() functions out but just one.

What is your work_mem set to?

Did testing show that shared_buffers set to 18GB was effective? That seems about 2 to 3 times beyond what you probably want.