PostgreSQL Updates 2012-09-24 released

Posted on 2012-09-24 by PostgreSQL Global Development Group

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released an update to all current versions of the PostgreSQL database system, including 9.2.1, 9.1.6, 9.0.10, 8.4.14 and 8.3.21. This update fixes critical issues for major versions 9.1 and 9.2, and users running those versions should apply it as soon as possible. Users of versions 8.3, 8.4 and 9.0 should plan to update at the next scheduled downtime.

The update fixes two potential data corruption issues present in the PostgreSQL 9.1 and 9.2 for any server which has crashed, been shutdown with "immediate", or was failed over to a standby. First, the PostgreSQL development team has discovered a chance of corruption of BTREE and GIN indexes for databases. Second, there is a significant chance of corruption of the visibility map. This update fixes both issues.

We strongly advise users of 9.1 and 9.2 to run VACUUM and/or index rebuilds after applying the update. Please see the 2012-09-24 Update wiki page for detailed instructions.

This update release also contains fixes for many minor issues discovered and patched by the PostgreSQL community in the last month, including many fixes for the newly released version 9.2. These include:

  • fix sorting issue with IN lists and indexes
  • fix planner failure when combining GROUP BY with window functions
  • improve selectivity of text searches using prefixes
  • prevent rescanning of WITH clauses from giving wrong answers
  • fix PL/Perl crashing issue
  • reduce bloat for multi-column GiST indexes
  • time zone data changes for Fiji
  • disallow Extensions from circular schema assignment
  • prevent crashes when default_transaction_isolation is set to "serializable"
  • several minor fixes to pg_upgrade

As with other minor releases, to apply this update release you may simply shut down PostgreSQL, update its binaries and restart. Users upgrading between major versions will need to dump and reload their database or use pg_upgrade. Users of older versions who have skipped multiple update releases may need to perform additional post-update steps; see the Release Notes for each version for details.

Links: