Re: Strange times in WAL files in archive directory (9.3)

Achilleas Mantzios <achill(at)matrix(dot)gatewaynet(dot)com> writes:
> On 24/01/2017 15:29, Tom Lane wrote:
>> The larger issue here is that you're confusing the function of an archive area with that of the active WAL directory. The server will prune what is in the active WAL directory and does not want your
>> help. In an archive directory, I'd expect the files to have monotonic timestamps corresponding to the times you copied them over to the archive, so you could rely on the timestamp sequence there.

> I would be silly to mess around with pg_xlog. I was talking about the
> archive directory. *There* is where I noticed the inconsistencies.

If you copied the files to the archive directory when the server told you
they were ready, it should be impossible for them to have non-sequential
timestamps. I'm wondering if you tried to short-circuit that, perhaps
by hard-linking them instead of copying. That won't work at all, since
the server will reuse (overwrite) the files once it thinks you've
copied them.

regards, tom lane