Re: Simple select hangs while CPU close to 100%

The actual application does not have to perform this statement since, as
you suggested; it keeps track of what got loaded. However, the table has
to go thru a de-duplication process because bulk load is utilized to
load the potentially large number (millions) of rows. All indexes were
dropped for the bulk load. This de-duplication procedure starts with a
SELECT statement that identifies duplicate rows. This is the original
SELECT that never returned. Later on I used the SELECT COUNT(*) to see
if somehow my original SELECT had something to do with the hang and I
found that this simple query hung as well.

The only way I could avoid getting into this stage was to perform a
VACUUM FULL on the table before the bulk load. I would prefer not using
a full vacuum every time due to the exclusive access to the table and
time it requires. The plain VACUUM did not work.

Regards,
Jozsef

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Adam Tauno
Williams
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 1:33 PM
To: pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Simple select hangs while CPU close to 100%

> I'm having this very disturbing problem. I got a table with about
> 100,000 rows in it. Our software deletes the majority of these rows
> and then bulk loads another 100,000 rows into the same table. All this
> is happening within a single transaction. I then perform a simple
> "select count(*) from ..." statement that never returns. In the mean

COUNT(*) is always slow; but either way if the process is deleting and
then adding records, can't you just keep track of how may records you
loaded [aka count++] rather than turning around and asking the database
before any statistics have had a chance to be updated.

> time, the backend Postgres process is taking close to 100% of the
> CPU. The hang-up does not always happen on the same statement but
> eventually it happens 2 out of 3 times. If I dump and then restore the
> schema where this table resides the problem is gone until the next
> time we run through the whole process of deleting, loading and
> querying the table.
> There is no other activity in the database. All requested locks are
> granted.

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