Horton

Re: [HACKERS] ERROR: "Database 'products', OID nnn, has disappeared from pg_database"

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

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From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Barnes, Sandy (Sandra)" <Sandy.Barnes@Honeywell.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, "'pgsql-general@postgresql.org'" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Date: 2001-02-03T20:04:21Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
"Barnes, Sandy (Sandra)" <Sandy.Barnes@Honeywell.com> writes:
>> Normally, this works fine, but sometimes we get the error 
>> 
>> "Database 'products', OID nnn, has disappeared from pg_database"
>> 
>> where nnn is some number, and forever afterwards we can't access a
>> database with that name.  Removing and recreating the database doesn't
>> help.  Neither does vacuuming it.

Try vacuuming pg_database (after connecting to template1 or the other
always-there db).  7.1 will be a little smarter about this, but the
setup you describe is still pretty risky IMHO.  You have a nonvolatile
reference in pg_database to a volatile database in the RAM filesystem,
so a system crash will leave you with a dangling reference...

			regards, tom lane