backend terminated abnormally

Hello everyone:

I have a server running RedHat 7.1, Kern 2.4.21 and glibc ver 2.2.5.  I
have had a postgresql database on it for two years now without any
problems.  When I run vacuum verbose analyze it crashes and leaves me
with the error:

NOTICE : analyzing pg_type server closed connection unexpectedly.
    This probably means the backend terminated abnormally before or
while processing the request.

I've looked this up on the lists and found little that I think pertains
to me.

According to the lists my glibc library is past the version needed.  My
kernel is also up to par.

What are my options here?  I don't think I have a version problem but I
did see a post about adjusting the shared_buffers.  It doesn't make
sense to me to change this since I didn't get a memory error.

Vacuum has been working religiously for the past two years.  Oh yeah, my
version of postgres is 7.2.

I did notice that "vacuum verbose users" works but "vacuum verbose
analyze" doesn't.

HELP!  Thanks.