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Re: Buffer locking is special (hints, checksums, AIO writes)

Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>

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From: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
To: Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>
Cc: Kirill Reshke <reshkekirill@gmail.com>, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>, Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Michael Paquier <michael.paquier@gmail.com>
Date: 2026-02-09T22:16:38Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
Hi,

On 2026-02-09 12:42:25 +0100, Antonin Houska wrote:
> Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote:
> 
> > On 2026-01-12 12:45:03 -0500, Andres Freund wrote:
> > > I'm doing another pass through 0003 and will push that if I don't find
> > > anything significant.
> > 
> > Done, after adjust two comments in minor ways.
> 
> I suppose this is commit 0b96e734c590.
> 
> While troubleshooting REPACK issue [1], I realized that
> HeapTupleSatisfiesMVCCBatch() can also be called during logical decoding - in
> that case we need to use a historic MVCC snapshot.

Huh. Indeed. That's unintentional - the path should never have been reached,
we are checking that an MVCC snapshot is used. Unfortunately, somebody
(i.e. probably me) at some point defined the relevant macro as

/* This macro encodes the knowledge of which snapshots are MVCC-safe */
#define IsMVCCSnapshot(snapshot)  \
	((snapshot)->snapshot_type == SNAPSHOT_MVCC || \
	 (snapshot)->snapshot_type == SNAPSHOT_HISTORIC_MVCC)

Which makes sense for some places, but not for plenty others.

The reason this didn't cause more widespread issues is that during logical
decoding we mostly don't use sequential scans etc that are affected by the
these paths.


> My proposal to fix the problem is attached.

That's imo not at all the right fix - it'd make visibility during seqscans
checking noticeably slower.


I think we ought to instead restrict the page-at-a-time scans to only happen
with "real" mvcc snapshots. I.e. this:

	/*
	 * Disable page-at-a-time mode if it's not a MVCC-safe snapshot.
	 */
	if (!(snapshot && IsMVCCSnapshot(snapshot)))
		scan->rs_base.rs_flags &= ~SO_ALLOW_PAGEMODE;

should trigger for historic snapshots as well.


Does that fix the issue for you?


What's your reproducer?


Greetings,

Andres Freund

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. bufmgr: Fix ordering of checks in PinBuffer()

  2. Use UnlockReleaseBuffer() in more places

  3. bufmgr: Make UnlockReleaseBuffer() more efficient

  4. bufmgr: Don't copy pages while writing out

  5. Fix use of wrong variable in _hash_kill_items()

  6. Fix bug due to confusion about what IsMVCCSnapshot means

  7. bufmgr: Switch to standard order in MarkBufferDirtyHint()

  8. bufmgr: Remove the, now obsolete, BM_JUST_DIRTIED

  9. Require share-exclusive lock to set hint bits and to flush

  10. heapam: Don't mimic MarkBufferDirtyHint() in inplace updates

  11. bufmgr: Allow conditionally locking of already locked buffer

  12. bufmgr: Avoid spurious compiler warning after fcb9c977aa5

  13. lwlock: Remove ForEachLWLockHeldByMe

  14. lwlock: Remove support for disowned lwlwocks

  15. bufmgr: Implement buffer content locks independently of lwlocks

  16. bufmgr: Change BufferDesc.state to be a 64-bit atomic

  17. lwlock: Improve local variable name

  18. lwlock: Invert meaning of LW_FLAG_RELEASE_OK

  19. bufmgr: Make definitions related to buffer descriptor easier to modify

  20. heapam: Add batch mode mvcc check and use it in page mode

  21. freespace: Don't modify page without any lock

  22. heapam: Move logic to handle HEAP_MOVED into a helper function

  23. bufmgr: Optimize & harmonize LockBufHdr(), LWLockWaitListLock()

  24. bufmgr: Add one-entry cache for private refcount

  25. bufmgr: Separate keys for private refcount infrastructure

  26. Add pg_atomic_unlocked_write_u64

  27. Rename BUFFERPIN wait event class to BUFFER

  28. bufmgr: Turn BUFFER_LOCK_* into an enum

  29. lwlock: Fix, currently harmless, bug in LWLockWakeup()

  30. bufmgr: Use atomic sub for unpinning buffers

  31. bufmgr: Allow some buffer state modifications while holding header lock

  32. bufmgr: Fix valgrind checking for buffers pinned in StrategyGetBuffer()

  33. bufmgr: Don't lock buffer header in StrategyGetBuffer()

  34. bufmgr: fewer calls to BufferDescriptorGetContentLock

  35. bufmgr: Fix signedness of mask variable in BufferSync()

  36. bufmgr: Introduce FlushUnlockedBuffer

  37. Improve ReadRecentBuffer() scalability