Re: pg_dump 8.3.3 ERROR: invalid page header in block 2264419 of relation "pg_largeobject"

David Wall <d(dot)wall(at)computer(dot)org> writes:
> We have not noted any issues, but when I ran a pg_dump on an 8.3.3
> database, it failed after an hour or so with the error:

8.3.3?

> cat /proc/version
> Linux version 2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.xs5.0.0.39xen (root(at)pondo-2) (gcc
> version 4.1.2 20071124 (Red Hat 4.1.2-42)) #1 SMP Thu Aug 7 14:58:14 EDT
> 2008

Egad. I take it this server has been entirely unmaintained for ~ 8 years.

> ERROR: invalid page header in block 2264419 of relation "pg_largeobject"
> pg_dump: The command was: FETCH 1000 IN bloboid

> As we seem to have some data corruption issue, the question is how can I
> either fix this, or have pg_dump ignore it and continue doing the best
> dump it can? That is, I'd like to create a new clean database that has
> whatever data I can recover.

Setting zero_damaged_pages would be a brute-force answer, but bear in mind
that that's irreversible and it's hard to predict how much you'll lose.
If possible, I'd take a physical backup (e.g. with tar) of the entire
$PGDATA directory, preferably with the server stopped, before you do
that. Then you'll at least know you can get back to where you are.

I hope this is being done as part of migration to more up-to-date
software.

regards, tom lane