From time to time on postgres 7.2 or postgres 7.2.1 we get a case when we have the maximum number of postgres processes all taking all available CPU shared among themselves stuck in "startup" mode (as "ps -fwwwwu postgres" shows).
The only cure is to is to do a shutdown (which doesn't work) and then kill -9 one of the stuck-in-startup processes upon which they all die and it shuts down properly within seconds.
We then restart postgres and all is well.
The only extra info I have is that under 7.2 (not 7.2.1) after such circumstances, if I then did opened a psql process on that DB it would take many (perhaps 10 seconds) before psql gave me a prompt. If before this time I open the DB to many clients they all get stuck in startup again, but if I wait till after this prompt then they do not get stuck in startup again.
In contrast 7.2.1 psql client gives the prompt right away but the first simple query (select * from channelregion; - a few hundred row) takes maybe 5 seconds the first time.
Why are all these processes stuck in startup and taking as much cpu as they can?
Sam
Samuel Liddicott
Support Consultant
sam@ananova.com
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