Update "don't truncate with failsafe" rationale.

petergeoghegan · petergeoghegan · commit 988ffc30637c · 2022-02-15T15:16:19.000-08:00
There is a very good (though non-obvious) reason to avoid relation truncation during a VACUUM that has triggered the failsafe mechanism, which was missed before now. Update related comments, so this isn't forgotten. Reported-By: John Naylor <john.naylor@enterprisedb.com> Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAFBsxsFiMPxQ-dHZ8tOgktn=+ffeJT3+GinZ4zdOGbmAnCYadA@mail.gmail.com
diff --git a/src/backend/access/heap/vacuumlazy.c b/src/backend/access/heap/vacuumlazy.c
@@ -2793,8 +2793,13 @@ lazy_cleanup_one_index(Relation indrel, IndexBulkDeleteResult *istat,
  * an AccessExclusive lock must be replayed on any hot standby, where it can
  * be particularly disruptive.
  *
- * Also don't attempt it if wraparound failsafe is in effect.  It's hard to
- * predict how long lazy_truncate_heap will take.  Don't take any chances.
+ * Also don't attempt it if wraparound failsafe is in effect.  The entire
+ * system might be refusing to allocate new XIDs at this point.  The system
+ * definitely won't return to normal unless and until VACUUM actually advances
+ * the oldest relfrozenxid -- which hasn't happened for target rel just yet.
+ * If lazy_truncate_heap attempted to acquire an AccessExclusiveLock to
+ * truncate the table under these circumstances, an XID exhaustion error might
+ * make it impossible for VACUUM to fix the underlying XID exhaustion problem.
  * There is very little chance of truncation working out when the failsafe is
  * in effect in any case.  lazy_scan_prune makes the optimistic assumption
  * that any LP_DEAD items it encounters will always be LP_UNUSED by the time
