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IPC: CheckpointDelayStart

Waiting for a backend that blocks a checkpoint from starting
PostgreSQL wait event dossier
ClassIPC EventCheckpointDelayStart VersionsPG 17-18 Evidence2 source location(s)

Official description

Waiting for a backend that blocks a checkpoint from starting

PG 13 PG 14 PG 15 PG 16 PG 17 PG 18

Trigger mechanism

WAIT_EVENT_CHECKPOINT_DELAY_START at src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c:7211 is the grep-verified reporting path. The public identity/resource is mapped at src/backend/utils/activity/wait_event_names.txt:116. The instrumented operation is: Waiting for a backend that blocks a checkpoint from starting. The CheckpointDelayStart path has reached a process-coordination point and sleeps until a peer, worker, barrier, queue, or replication phase signals progress.

Normal or trouble?

  • Normal: Brief rendezvous is normal when every participant continues to advance.
  • Investigate: Investigate when the same phase persists across three samples, the expected peer is absent or blocked, or a queue and its dependants stop moving.

Diagnostic SQL

Sessions waiting on IPC/CheckpointDelayStart
SELECT pid, backend_type, usename, datname, application_name,
       state, now() - query_start AS query_age,
       now() - xact_start AS xact_age,
       wait_event_type, wait_event,
       pg_blocking_pids(pid) AS blocking_pids,
       left(query, 160) AS query
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE wait_event_type = 'IPC'
  AND wait_event = 'CheckpointDelayStart'
ORDER BY query_age DESC NULLS LAST;
Current IPC cohort
SELECT wait_event, count(*) AS waiting_sessions,
       count(*) FILTER (WHERE state = 'active') AS active_waiters,
       max(now() - query_start) AS oldest_query
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE wait_event_type = 'IPC'
GROUP BY wait_event
ORDER BY waiting_sessions DESC, wait_event;
Lock and relation context for these sessions
SELECT a.pid, l.locktype, l.mode, l.granted, l.fastpath,
       d.datname, n.nspname, c.relname,
       l.page, l.tuple, l.virtualxid, l.transactionid,
       l.classid, l.objid, l.objsubid
FROM pg_stat_activity AS a
LEFT JOIN pg_locks AS l ON l.pid = a.pid
LEFT JOIN pg_database AS d ON d.oid = l.database
LEFT JOIN pg_class AS c
  ON c.oid = l.relation
 AND l.database = (
       SELECT oid FROM pg_database WHERE datname = current_database()
     )
LEFT JOIN pg_namespace AS n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
WHERE a.wait_event_type = 'IPC'
  AND a.wait_event = 'CheckpointDelayStart'
ORDER BY a.pid, l.granted, l.locktype, l.mode;

Response

  1. Identify the peer or phase named by the event.
  2. Inspect that participant’s wait, error, and progress state.
  3. Repair the stalled participant or upstream dependency instead of treating the waiter as the root cause.

Source evidence