Re: RCA for MemoryContextAlloc: invalid request size(Known Issue)

yogvinder wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am having multiple postgresql 7.3(pretty old version now) on rhel4
> servers.

Which 7.3? Are you aware the community doesn't even officially support
them now?

> I am getting the error MemoryContextAlloc: invalid request size on many of
> these servers from time to time.
>
> On crawling through net, I have found that its because of some bad word
> value in a variable length field which implies database corruption. A
> possible solution to recover database is by deleting the corrupted row and
> then continuing till all the bad rows are deleted.
>
> My Queries:
> 1) What is the root cause? Why database is getting corrupted.

Hardware problems or a bug in the code. If it's happening on a regular
basis it might well be hardware.

> 2) Is any newer version or patch can take care of this issue.

The last download for 7.3 is 7.3.21

http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/OLD/

> 3) Any other solution for the same that can update the corrupted data.

If you're using RHEL check with RedHat and see what the latest RPM they
offer is.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd