The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference: 2419
Logged by: Andy Male
Email address: andy (AT) ubic (DOT) co.uk
PostgreSQL version: 8.1
Operating system: Windows 2003 Server (standard) SP1
Description: could not reattach to shared memory
Details:

FULL ERROR IN WINDOWS EVENT LOG -

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( PostgreSQL ) cannot be found.
The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or
message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be
able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and
Support for details. The following information is part of the event: FATAL:
could not reattach to shared memory (key=5432001, addr=01960000): Invalid
argument

There is no correspondng error in pg_log.

Once the error happens the database become unreponsive, current connections
stop responding and you cannot make new connections. Stopping and starting
the database removes the error and normal operation can continue.

The error happens intermittently (three or four times a day) and doesn't
seem to have a specific cause. The database is not heavily used and is
processing around 100 transactions per minute.

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I wish I had more to suggest to you. We are working on a few problems
with semaphore on Win2003 SP1, but nothing related to shared memory.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Andy Male wrote:
--
Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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Hi,

Thanks for your response. I have enabled additional logging and have
reduced the connections (max_connections) to 50 to reduce the memory
overhead. There should not be more than 8 connections at once and I wanted
to rule out some issue where the client wasn't releasing the connections.

The error has reduced in frequency but still happens. The following log
shows that there was a problem writing to the log file due to permissions
problem. Obviously this is not the case because the log file was accessible
before and after the error occurs since it contains further logging about
the problem.

The subsequent message in the log suggests something is wrong with the
client application (or I may be misinterpreting this message) -

"This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual
way. Please contact the application's support team for more information."

Then there are various other server error/warnings and a report of "possibly
corrupted shared memory" which is the original problem reported.

I am not sure what to do, I do not know how to debug the problem and
currently Postgres is un-useable in a production environment. I am
considering recoding the app to use an alternate database, but that is going
to be a fairly lengthy process just to prove the problem is with the
database rather than the client application. I can't actually see how a
client application could or should be able to cause a memory error in the
database. Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks
Andy

****** LOG FILE SNIP ******

2006-05-07 23:44:19 10.10.12.100(4018)LOG: 00000: statement: EXECUTE
npgsqlportal1 [PREPARE: select * from
fn_Driver_Session_Updated($1::int8,$2::bool)]
2006-05-07 23:44:19 10.10.12.100(4018)LOCATION: exec_execute_message,
postgres.c:1718
2006-05-07 23:44:20 10.10.12.100(4018)PANIC: 42501: could not write to log
file 0, segment 90 at offset 2998272, length 8192: Permission denied
2006-05-07 23:44:20 10.10.12.100(4018)CONTEXT: writing block 75 of relation
1663/20632/100738
SQL statement "update tbl_query_ui_consumer_session_mapping set
ui_consumer_session_data_action_type_id = 3, client_received = false where
session_id = $1 and client_session_id = $2 "
PL/pgSQL function "fn_driver_session_updated" line 58 at SQL
statement
2006-05-07 23:44:20 10.10.12.100(4018)LOCATION: XLogWrite, xlog.c:1474
2006-05-07 23:44:20 10.10.12.100(4018)STATEMENT: select * from
fn_Driver_Session_Updated($1::int8,$2::bool)

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual
way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

2006-05-07 23:44:21 LOG: 00000: server process (PID 5924) was terminated by
signal 3

2006-05-07 23:44:21 LOCATION: LogChildExit, postmaster.c:2425

2006-05-07 23:44:21 LOG: 00000: terminating any other active server
processes

2006-05-07 23:44:21 LOCATION: HandleChildCrash, postmaster.c:2306

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2467)WARNING: 57P02: terminating
connection because of crash of another server process

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2467)DETAIL: The postmaster has commanded
this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because
another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared
memory.

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2467)HINT: In a moment you should be able
to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2467)LOCATION: quickdie, postgres.c:2103

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2466)WARNING: 57P02: terminating
connection because of crash of another server process

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2466)DETAIL: The postmaster has commanded
this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because
another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared
memory.

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2466)HINT: In a moment you should be able
to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.10.100(2466)LOCATION: quickdie, postgres.c:2103

2006-05-07 23:44:21 10.10.12.100(4021)WARNING: 57P02: terminating
connection because of crash of another server process


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Momjian [mailtogman (AT) candle (DOT) pha.pa.us]
Sent: 07 May 2006 00:16
To: Andy Male
Cc: pgsql-bugs (AT) postgresql (DOT) org
Subject: Re: [BUGS] BUG #2419: could not reattach to shared memory


I wish I had more to suggest to you. We are working on a few problems
with semaphore on Win2003 SP1, but nothing related to shared memory.




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TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

Andy Male wrote:

Hi Andy,

This is your problem:

The "Permission denied" message is a report Postgres is getting from the
operating system. Notice it is marked as PANIC -- an unrecoverable
error. What you should be investigating is why does the operating
system reject the writing of that file. It clearly is a database file;
try looking at the files named $PGDATA/base/20632/100738 or possibly
$PGDATA/pg_tblspc/1663/20632/100738. What permissions do those files
have? Who owns them? If it's not the user who runs the Postgres
processes, or they are not accesible to it, then something else in the
system changed that, which is what you need to figure out and disable.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

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On Mon, 2006-05-08 at 08:31 -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
This is a pg_xlog error, so it looks like you have a whole-system issue,
not just isolated tables.

--
Simon Riggs
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com


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"Andy" <andy (AT) otelex (DOT) co.uk> writes:
We've seen reports of intermittent permission failures on Windows being
caused by broken antivirus software. What security software have you
got on those machines, and does the failure go away if you remove it?

regards, tom lane

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