BUG #7634: Missing files in global/ after a lot of CREATE DATABASE / DROP DATABASE

The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference: 7634
Logged by: Thomas
Email address: thomas(dot)eckestad(at)gmail(dot)com
PostgreSQL version: 9.1.6
Operating system: Linux
Description:

Hi,

We are using a Postgres server dedicated for unit testing, i.e. for testing
our code interacting with the database. Each unit test may create, use and
then drop one or more test databases. When running the complete test suite a
lot of databases are created and dropped (>100).

After a couple of days/weeks with frequent unit test activity DROP DATABASE
eventually triggers errors on the following form:

2012-05-08 08:53:02.512 CEST> LOG: statement: DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS
"HEAD_test_migrate_group_data_10010018668"
2012-05-08 08:53:02.512 CEST> ERROR: could not open file "global/12693": No
such file or directory
2012-05-08 08:53:02.512 CEST> STATEMENT: DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS
"HEAD_test_migrate_group_data_10010018668"

For now we handle this situation by automatically performing a complete
reinstall of the test database server when we detect the error. So we have a
satisfactory workaround in place.

We are using PostgreSQL 9.1.6 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc
(GCC) 4.3.4, 64-bit.

Best regards,
Thomas