Re: strange locks on PG 11 with Golang programs

On Mon, Mar 09, 2020 at 09:51:21AM +0100, Josef Machytka wrote:
> We are lately experiencing very strange locks on PostgreSQL 11.7 when we
> process ETL tasks using our programs in Go 1.13.8 using standard libraries
> sql and pq.
>
> ETL task has to rename tables but PostgreSQL shows that this simple
> operation waits for Lock on relation and select from PG wiki (
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Lock_Monitoring) which should show
> blocking process shows that command "alter table .... rename to ...." is
> blocked by process "COPY .... to stdout" but from completely different
> table.
>
> And from time to time even selects from some tables seem to by blocked by
> copy commands running on other tables. This is shown by the same select
> from PG wiki for blocking queries.
>
> All this stuff runs from golang programs. So maybe problem is not on
> PostgreSQL but in golang libraries?

The query displayed is just the query currently executing, but if the
connection is in a transaction the problematic lock could have been acquired by
any previously executed query. Did you check in pg_stat_activity if the
connection is in a transaction (e.g. query_start != xact_start)?