[Pgpool-general] Bad degeneration when shutting down secondary backend

[Pablo Milano]

I am using pgpool 2.5.1 with linux kernel 2.6.8

I noticed this repeteable behaviour in a heavily loaded environment:
When shutting down the linux box containing the backend configured as
"secondary", while sending transactions to pgpool, degeneration mode shuts
down primary backend instead of secondary. The log shows the following:

---------------------------------------
Aug 12 15:04:14 asimov pgpool: 2005-08-12 15:04:14 ERROR: pid 5888:
pool_process_query: kind does not match between backends master(C)
secondary(E)
Aug 12 15:04:14 asimov pgpool: 2005-08-12 15:04:14 LOG:   pid 5888:
notice_backend_error: master: 1 fail over request from pid 5888
Aug 12 15:04:14 asimov pgpool: 2005-08-12 15:04:14 LOG:   pid 5876: starting
degeneration. shutdown master host asimov(5432)
Aug 12 15:04:15 asimov pgpool: 2005-08-12 15:04:15 LOG:   pid 5876:
degeneration done. shutdown master host asimov(5432)
---------------------------------------

It seems that pgpool encounters a data mismatch between backends, when what
really happens is that one of them is dying.
I've found this in pgpool 2.6.1 changelog:

	* do not raise failover when read() read encounters EOF. It seems it
	  is a oversight. Backend crush may cause that but it does not
	  immediately mean postmaster crush

Does this solve the problem I'm having? Should I move to pgpool 2.6.1?
Thanks in advance.