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backend problems and "copy to"
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* backend problems and "copy to"
@ 1995-08-29 12:20  sidney hellman <sid@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 2+ messages in thread

From: sidney hellman @ 1995-08-29 12:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: legacy; +Cc: sid@postgres.Berkeley.EDU

Hi there,

First of all, I'm not new to programming postgres, I'm just new to the
nitty-gritty of administration. 

We area having some problems with our psotgres 4.2 database. 
trying to back up one of the classes with the command "copy" from within
monitor results in the following message. 

copy trace to "/passcal/data00/field/moma/moma.95:241:10:19.trace.ascii.new"
\g

Query sent to backend is "copy trace to "/passcal/data00/field/moma/moma.95:241:10:19.trace.ascii.new" "
Error: No response from the backend, exiting...

This is after about 15 minutes, and the output file has grown to a size of
about 16.5 MB (I did expect something this large, I just didn't expect
an error.)

The same thing happens with something along the lines of this..

monitor -c "copy trace to stdout"  -NQ moma > filename.stuff

I decided to try to vacuum the DB, but the vacuum is failing with
backend problems also.


The DB still seems to be ok, from a users point of view.

I need to back up this db, and copy it to a machine at a remote
sight. Does anyone have any ideas or insight?  Our normal DB guy is
unreachable for the next few weeks, so I've kind of been tossed into
the lion cage.

Thanks in advance for any help.

		Sid Hellman

Sid Hellman at the Passcal Instrument Center | 		
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory             | 	"It was a bizarre 
of Columbia University                       | 	      gardening accident."
sid@ldeo.columbia.edu    (914)365-8728       | 		- David St. Hubbins

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^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 2+ messages in thread

* Re: backend problems and "copy to"
@ 1995-09-04 00:53  Nicholas Hudson <N.Hudson@janus.cat.csiro.au>
  parent: sidney hellman <sid@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 2+ messages in thread

From: Nicholas Hudson @ 1995-09-04 00:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: sidney hellman <sid@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>; +Cc: legacy

Hi Sid,

> Hi there,
> 
> First of all, I'm not new to programming postgres, I'm just new to the
> nitty-gritty of administration. 
> 
> We area having some problems with our psotgres 4.2 database. 
> trying to back up one of the classes with the command "copy" from within
> monitor results in the following message. 
> 
> copy trace to "/passcal/data00/field/moma/moma.95:241:10:19.trace.ascii.new"
> \g
> 
> Query sent to backend is "copy trace to "/passcal/data00/field/moma/moma.95:241:10:19.trace.ascii.new" "
> Error: No response from the backend, exiting...

I'd like to make two statements on this. 

1. I have had problems restoring tables from a text copy. It seems to be a 
problem with abstime & reltime fields. Iwould suggest that you test this out 
in your development database before you trust it. I use the binary option and 
this works fine.

2. We get this problem from time to time on a couple of occations it was due 
to a coruption of some for in the database which I could not find or fix. (ie. 
I have very little exp. or knowledge about postgres db stucture). Most time 
the computer must be rebooted and the problem goes away, restarting the 
postmaster does nothing. Once I caused this symptom myself while doing some 
maintenance to a database I was making a small change to approx 1000 tuples in 
a class using a single transaction to protect the database integrity. 
Unfortunatly the tcl script crashed without doing an end or abort. Hay presto 
"Error: No response from the backend, exiting..." on everything. A reboot 
fixed this one, luckily. I get the impression that some table in the OS or 
something fills up ???

I havn't spent much time digging into the problem so sorry I don't have a 
solution for you. If any one can explain these symptoms I would be grateful.

> 
> This is after about 15 minutes, and the output file has grown to a size of
> about 16.5 MB (I did expect something this large, I just didn't expect
> an error.)
> 
> The same thing happens with something along the lines of this..
> 
> monitor -c "copy trace to stdout"  -NQ moma > filename.stuff
> 
> I decided to try to vacuum the DB, but the vacuum is failing with
> backend problems also.
> 
> 
> The DB still seems to be ok, from a users point of view.
> 
> I need to back up this db, and copy it to a machine at a remote
> sight. Does anyone have any ideas or insight?  Our normal DB guy is
> unreachable for the next few weeks, so I've kind of been tossed into
> the lion cage.

best of luck sid

Nicholas

 CSIRO dEM QCAT
 Computer Support
 N.Hudson@dem.csiro.au 
 Phone: +61 7 212 4604


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   To add/remove yourself to/from the POSTGRES mailing list: send mail with 
   the subject line ADD or DEL to "postgres-request@postgres.Berkeley.EDU".
   If this fails, send mail to "post_questions@postgres.Berkeley.EDU" and
   a human will deal with it.  DO NOT post to the "postgres" mailing list.
==============================================================================
              URL: http://s2k-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU:8000/postgres/



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 2+ messages in thread


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1995-08-29 12:20 backend problems and "copy to" sidney hellman <sid@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>
1995-09-04 00:53 ` Nicholas Hudson <N.Hudson@janus.cat.csiro.au>

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