Re: vacuum won't fix tx wraparound problem

In response to Gene Hart <genekhart(at)gmail(dot)com>:

> I'm getting the following errors and I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. The database is very large and I can't get it to accept commands. Please help!
>
> maindb =# create table test1();
> ERROR: database is not accepting commands to avoid wraparound data loss in database "maindb"
> HINT: Stop the postmaster and use a standalone backend to vacuum database "maindb".
> You might also need to commit or roll back old prepared transactions.
>
> [root(at)P00C01S01-DBM04 data]# su postgres
> bash-3.2$ postgres --single -D /data1/pg2/home/data -O maindb
> - - 2010-06-27 13:07:05 UTC :WARNING: database "maindb" must be vacuumed within 1000000 transactions
> - - 2010-06-27 13:07:05 UTC :HINT: To avoid a database shutdown, execute a database-wide VACUUM in "maindb".
> You might also need to commit or roll back old prepared transactions.
>
> PostgreSQL stand-alone backend 8.4.4
> backend> vacuum
> backend> ^D^D
> exit

Am I reading this wrong or did you not bother to allow the vacuum to finish?
Considering there's no command terminator (;) on the vacuum command, it's
unlikely that it ever actually started to do anything.

If you've neglected vacuuming long enough for tx wraparound to be an issue,
it's likely that vacuum is going to take a long time.

--
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com
http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/