Re: problems with pg_dump... with postmaster really

=?iso-8859-1?q?Mart=EDn=20Marqu=E9s?= <martin(at)bugs(dot)unl(dot)edu(dot)ar> writes:
> I have found that the postmaster is dying very offen lattly, and yesterday I
> got this error on a pg_dumpall:

> connected to template1...
> dumping database "horde"...
> dumping database "lismarch"...
> pg_dump: NOTICE: Message from PostgreSQL backend:
> The Postmaster has informed me that some other backend
> died abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.
> I have rolled back the current transaction and am
> going to terminate your database system connection and exit.
> Please reconnect to the database system and repeat your query.

This does not look like pg_dump's fault --- its backend is getting
terminated because some *other* backend crashed, as the NOTICE is
apparently not making sufficiently clear.

What you need to find out is what that other backend was doing. Is
there a core dump file in any of your databases? Any entry in the
postmaster log about a failed child process? You will probably need
to provide a gdb stack trace from a core dump before we can help very
much. (It'd also be useful to know what PG version you are using.)

regards, tom lane