A60: Canceling autovacuum task

Example Postgres Log Output:

ERROR: canceling autovacuum task
CONTEXT: automatic analyze of table "dbname.schemaname.tablename"

Explanation:

This log notice shows when autovacuum has been running, but was cancelled before it finished, e.g. by calling pg_cancel_backend on the specific autovacuum process.

One scenario where this cancelation might occur is when an admin or DBA chooses to cancel an autovacuum task due to concern about I/O impact.

Note that the process in question may either have been running ANALYZE or VACUUM, as you can see in the CONTEXT log line.

Recommended Action:

As long as autovacuum is only canceled in a specific circumstance, instead of frequently, this event is no problem.

Please be aware that canceling autovacuum tasks regularly will cause problems eventually (e.g. TXID Wraparound), and is not recommended. It might make sense to tune autovacuum instead to run with different thresholds for the problematic tables.

Learn More:

• pganalyze Blog Post: Visualizing & Tuning Postgres Autovacuum