Re: PG_DUMP not working

On 9/18/07, Dan99 <power919(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I found out this morning that I cannot get pg_dump to work at all on
> my database. It refuses to create a dump and instead just freezes.
> When using the verbose option (-v) i get the following output and then
> it stops (it at one point ran for days on end before i even noticed)
>
> pg_dump: saving encoding
> pg_dump: saving database definition
> pg_dump: reading schemas
> pg_dump: reading user-defined types
> pg_dump: reading user-defined functions
> pg_dump: reading user-defined aggregate functions
> pg_dump: reading user-defined operators
> pg_dump: reading user-defined operator classes
> pg_dump: reading user-defined tables
>
> I think this problem is somehow related to a VIEW problem that I
> have. I created a VIEW of semi-large tables, which did not come back
> with any errors. However, when I go to view it, it never finishes
> loading. Also, I cannot drop this view as this as well never
> finishes.
>
> PGSQL version: 7.4.2

Two things.

What's in the postgresql logs (if you're not logging pgsql output,
then turn it on and watch it while you're running pg_dump.

Update your pgsql. 7.4.2 is old in two ways. the 7.4 branch is
pretty old. plan an upgrade as soon as you can get this backup to
work. Secondly, pg 7.4 is up to a number near 20 now, i.e. 7.4.18.
There are over two years of bug fixes you're missing, and one of them
could well be the solution to your problem.

Upgrading from 7.4 to 8.2 requires a dump and reload, but 7.4.2 to
7.4.18 is just an rpm -Uvh or apt-get update away