Postgres and Open Source Experts

Is Trust Gone? Has the supply chain attacks eroded the trust we have in public repositories

PostgreSQL’s autovacuum is a silent guardian until it fails. In this final post of our autovacuum series, we tackle two often-overlooked scenarios that can lead to database downtime: temp tables in multi-database clusters and lingering sessions with temp tables. Learn practical prevention tactics and monitoring strategies to keep your cluster safe from XID wraparound and emergency shutdowns.

Even in single-database setups, temp tables can quietly lead to major problems. In this post, we break down how long-lived temp tables contribute to XID wraparound risk, why PostgreSQL shuts down to protect against it, and what proactive steps you can take to avoid unexpected downtime.

Part 4 of our PostgreSQL Autovacuum Failure Series explores how session-level temp tables in RDS can silently stall autovacuum—and how we resolved it. Learn why monitoring and visibility are critical in managed cloud environments.

Series Summary: This is Part 3 of a multi-part series on PostgreSQL autovacuum failures.

In Part 2, we reproduced the autovacuum failure issue — now let’s understand why it happens. This post dives into PostgreSQL internals, explaining how autovacuum allocates its resources and why certain databases get “stuck” in maintenance limbo.

Why Does This Occur?

This behavior stems from how the autovacuum daemon allocates its resources. Autovacuum identifies …

Series Summary: This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on PostgreSQL autovacuum failures.

In Part 1, we introduced the scenario where autovacuum mysteriously halts in a multi-database PostgreSQL cluster. Now, we’ll reproduce the issue using a lightweight test setup. This walkthrough will help you see the failure in action and understand how quickly your system can degrade.

How to Reproduce the Problem (and Watch PostgreSQL Go Sideways)

…

This blog series examines PostgreSQL autovacuum failures, focusing on temp tables and multi-database edge cases that cause bloat, slowdowns, or XID wraparound risks in complex environments.

The fifth and last in a series of blogs covering common mistakes in Database and Application designs for financial calculations.

Method of Rounding:

There are many methods of rounding

1. Half Round Up
2. Half Round Down
3. Round Towards Zero
4. Round Away from Zero
5. Round Half To Even
6. Round Half To Odd
7. Random Round

The built-in method of rounding in PostgreSQL is Half Round Up. Unfortunately, it is not the best approach, …

The fourth in a series of blogs covering common mistakes in Database and Application designs for financial calculations.

Database Driver, or Application Framework Created Error:

The database driver or application framework created errors are probably the hardest to find, as we are the consumer not the writer of the tool, with many assuming the casting is correct. However, we must review the documentation or the library’s code to know how …

The third in a series of blogs covering common mistakes in Database and Application designs for financial calculations.

Order of Operations and Storing Aggregate Results:

When working with float data types, order of operations will affect the ending value.

Consider 3:

Python3:

justin@Debian10:~$ python3

Python 3.7.3 (default, Jul 25 2020, 13:03:44)

>>> (1234.567 * 3.333333) + (1.234567 * 3.333333)

4119.338,144,732,812

>>> (1234.567 + 1.234567 ) * 3.333333

 …