Re: Postgres issues "Not enough storage is available to complete this operation" exception

"Maria Cianci" <Maria(dot)Cianci(at)cae(dot)com> wrote:
>
> I am running on a Windows XP machine, 4GB of RAM and over 26GB of
> free hard-disk an application that all it does is insert records into
> the Postgres 8.3 database. When the database is approx 17GB Postgres
> issues the "Not enough storage is available to complete this operation"
> and refuses to insert records.

What method are you using to gauge the size of the database? Keep in
mind that PG needs disk space for things other than the DB itself, WAL
logs, for example. If PG doesn't have space to create more WAL logs,
it can't process data changes.

> I normally shut down and restart the
> application and data collection continues normally until it reaches the
> 26GB and issues the same error: "Not enough storage is available to
> complete this operation." I'm very puzzled to say the least.

Really? If you're using all 26G, what other error would you expect?

I find it odd that it would have problems when there are nearly 10G free,
though. What methods are you using to measure DB size, and disk usage?

Keep in mind that unless you check disk usage at the exact moment the
error occurs, you don't really know what the usage was, as Postgres may
have cleaned up some files after the error was detected. I recommend
using SNMP or some similar method to record disk usage on an ongoing
basis, then correlate that data with timing of the errors. Based on
past experience, I'd be willing to bet that you really _are_ running
out of disk space at the time the error is reported. I believe that
large transactions can cause this, because they take up a lot of disk
space during processing that is then freed once the transaction is either
completed or rolled back. Does your application do large transactions?

--
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com