Re: BUG #4836: Losing data

Thanks a lot Tom, I'll start with upgrading to 8.3.7 and see how is t going to be.

Regards.

Haitham

>>> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> 03/06/2009 17:01 >>>
"Haitham Isac" <isac(at)unhcr(dot)org> writes:
> PostgreSQL version: 8.3.1
> Operating system: Windows Server 2003 SP2

> This system is up and running pretty well except for a problem we face on
> occasional basis which is losing random records from random tables (i.e.
> doesn't follow a particular theme). This is happening for records that had
> been entered weeks ago and then all of a sudden they are not there any
> more.

Hmm. The first bit of advice is to update to 8.3.latest (currently 8.3.7).
However, there are no known data-losing bugs in 8.3.1 (unless you are
using GiST indexes), so that's more in the nature of good practice than
something I think is likely to fix this specific problem.

As for the specific problem, Postgres is not known for losing data, and
especially not for losing individual rows without any other sign of
database corruption. I don't want to say it couldn't be our bug, but
frankly it seems much more likely that your application is incorrectly
issuing delete commands against those rows. What I'd suggest is turning
on log_statement = all so you can track all commands issued to the
database for awhile, and then checking to see if there are any errant
DELETEs listed. If it *is* our bug the log might provide enough clues
for you to submit a reproducible test case, which is what we'd need to
fix the bug.

Also, to be blunt, if you're storing mission-critical data you should
think twice about doing it on Windows. That OS is not particularly
trustworthy --- especially not if you have any third-party antivirus
software installed --- and I don't have unlimited faith in our port to
it either. Again, switching OSes seems unlikely to solve your immediate
problem, but it might spare you a catastrophic failure somewhere down
the road.

regards, tom lane