Backends created by ODBC live forever ...

We have an application which syncs Access databases with PostgreSQL (I
know that this is VERY ugly). It is a simple script based Access
application. People wanted that application because they are familiar
with Microsoft stuff. When Access establishes a connection to PostgreSQL
everything is just fine. If Access is closed properly everything is
still fine - the server side backend dies just the way it is supposed to
die. However, if Access crashes or if the dial-up connections goes down
the connection is not closed explicitly and the server side backend
stays alive forever - even if the Windows client is rebooted.

As you can easily imagine that there are MANY dead backends around at
the end of the day. Is there a way for PostgreSQL to found out that the
connection is lost? This problem occurs in combination with ODBC - I
haven't seen it anywhere else up to now.

Did anybody encouter similar problems?

Regards,

Hans
<http://kernel.cybertec.at>