Re: ltree gist index errors and fill factor questions

Mike Broers <mbroers(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> We have an ltree column (tree_path) that has a gist index
> (index_nodes_on_tree_path). This is in a 9.3.5 database. Recently errors
> started occurring in the postgres log on some updates to this table:

> fixing incomplete split in index "index_nodes_on_tree_path", block 2358

> STATEMENT: UPDATE "nodes" SET "parent_id" = $1, "contents_id" =
> $2, "contents_type" = $3, "trough_code" = $4, "live_flag" = $5, "ordering"
> =$6, "id" = $7, "tree_path" = $8 WHERE "nodes"."id" = 127695

> ERROR: failed to add item to index page in "index_nodes_on_tree_path"

> Reindexing index_nodes_on_tree_path fixes the problem temporarily, but it
> returns.

That sure sounds like a bug, but we're unlikely to be able to find it
without a lot more info. Is there any chance you could extract a
reproducible test case? Presumably this would require a starting data
set and a series of updates to apply to it to provoke the error. We'd
only need the data that goes into this index, not any of the rest of
the table.

regards, tom lane