PostgreSQL connection problems

Question

I have very strange problem with my application, upon occasions I get following error when connecting to postgres. This happens without any pattern, often happens when I run some extensive selenium tests.

Warning: pg_connect() [function.pg-connect]: Unable to connect to PostgreSQL server: server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.

Postgres logs shows no abnormalities, also other applications that run on same postgres instance have no problems at all.

My Postgres is 8.2.9, running on windows 2008 server

Any hints ?

Answer 1

You're only showing the client error. Since it means that something happened on the backend, you will need to look in your server logs for information about what actually happened. (The postgres logs and/or the eventlog - check both)

A typical reason for these things to happen is if you are running some antivirus software on the server. If you do, try uninstalling it (not just disabling it) and see if the problem goes away.

Answer 2

"server closed the connection unexpectedly" most of the time means the backend crashed. If that's the case there should be some lines about it in the server log.

And by the way the latest version in the 8.2 branch is 8.2.12. Upgrade, test, report.

Answer 3

A random guess. Do you use persistent connections?