Error when trying to use pg_dump on 8.3 after minor release update

Greetings,

I get the following error when I try to dump a database on a production server:

[jberry(at)dms dms]$ pg_dump -U dms_user -s dms > dms_s.sql
pg_dump: SQL command failed
pg_dump: Error message from server: ERROR:  could not open relation
with OID 27224
pg_dump: The command was: SELECT
pg_catalog.pg_get_viewdef('27289'::pg_catalog.oid) as viewdef

It is a RHEL 5 x86_64 server, running 8.3.7/8

Since the previous backup, we upgraded (via yum) the server from 8.3.7
to 8.3.8 without a restart.

With this error, I'm concerned about stopping and starting postgresql
to see if the error goes away: I don't want us to be left with a dead
database and no backup with the latest data.

So, is this expected behavior when you fail to restart after a minor
version upgrade, or is this a sign of hardware failure and we should
try dumping relations one at a time?

Regards,
-Joshua Berry