Re: pg_stop_backup does not complete

> You haven't posted a reproduceable bug, nor is this new to 9.0.

Yes, I have.

1) set up a failing archive_command on an idle database

2) do pg_start_backup

3) do pg_stop_backup

4) pg_stop_backup waits forever (or at least 5 minutes, which as long as
I've given it so far).

> This is about what happens in production, not your laptop. The required
> behaviour in-production is to assume that the sysadmin has configured it
> correctly and we wait for them to fix the problem. 

90% of our user base does not have a sysadmin.  Or, for that matter,
even a professional DBA.

> The previous
> complaints were from people who felt they wanted to avoid invalid
> backups.

People don't deploy PostgreSQL in production in the first place if it
has this kind of "no good option from here" failure when they first try
it.  HS/SR is for use by new users of PostgreSQL as well as the
experienced.

--Josh Berkus