vacuum_freeze_table_age

vacuum_freeze_table_age — Age at which VACUUM should scan whole table to freeze tuples. Observed in PG9.0–19 Beta 3; its last measured boot default is 150000000 in PG19 Beta 3, with user context. This is a beta-snapshot fact and can change before PostgreSQL 19 GA.

Note

Fact — official short description: “Age at which VACUUM should scan whole table to freeze tuples.”

Identity

Type , Valueinteger: Upstream pg_settings type
Context , Valueuser: Settable by an ordinary user
Unit , Value—: Raw unit
Range , Value0 – 2000000000: Raw limits in the last observed version
Enum values , Value—: — for non-enum types
Category , ValueVacuuming / Freezing: Upstream classification
Latest boot value , Value150000000: 150000000

Lifecycle

Fact	Value
First observed	PG9.0 (research boundary)
Present in	PG9.0–19 Beta 3
Removed in	No
Introduction commit	Not asserted: predates the PG9.0 research boundary
Commit date	—
Discussion	—

Default history

Measured PG9.0–19 Beta 3 boot defaults
Versions	Raw `boot_val`	Unit	Human value
PG9.0–19 Beta 3	`150000000`	—	150000000

How it works

Sets the XID age at which VACUUM switches to an aggressive scan so it can advance a table’s relfrozenxid. It is a user-context setting.

An aggressive XID scan visits every page not already all-frozen and freezes eligible XIDs. PostgreSQL caps the effective value at 95% of autovacuum_freeze_max_age, leaving room for manual maintenance before forced anti-wraparound autovacuum.

Monitor age(relfrozenxid) and age(datfrozenxid), not relminmxid. The separate vacuum_multixact_freeze_table_age controls MXID-driven aggressive scans.

Tuning advice

Tip

Advice. These are workload-specific starting points and must be validated with measurements.

Workload	Guidance
OLTP	Set an XID aggressive-scan threshold that routine maintenance can reach and complete before autovacuum_freeze_max_age. Confirm full-table scan time on the largest relations.
OLAP	Schedule aggressive XID freezing for static or newly loaded partitions while I/O headroom is available; lowering the threshold can spread work across maintenance windows.
Small nodes	Keep the default and watch the oldest relfrozenxid in every database. Setting zero forces aggressive behavior for every VACUUM and is rarely appropriate globally.

Pigsty

Values use the fixed 8-vCPU, 32-GiB, 100-GiB SSD fixture and render the current Pigsty templates for PG19 Beta 3; this does not assert current Pigsty support for that historical or beta release.

Template	Effective value	Versus upstream boot	Source expression
OLTP	Unmodified	—	—
OLAP	Unmodified	—	—
CRIT	Unmodified	—	—
TINY	Unmodified	—	—

Caution

Advice — pending human review. Fact from the current Pigsty template projection: OLTP: PG9.0–19 Beta 3 unmodified; OLAP: PG9.0–19 Beta 3 unmodified; CRIT: PG9.0–19 Beta 3 unmodified; TINY: PG9.0–19 Beta 3 unmodified. No Pigsty-specific rationale is inferred from an absent override.

Common pitfalls

Monitoring relminmxid instead of the XID horizon relfrozenxid.
Setting a value above 95% of autovacuum_freeze_max_age and assuming PostgreSQL will use it unchanged.
Forcing aggressive scans too frequently on large mutable tables.
Waiting for forced anti-wraparound autovacuum instead of measuring routine full-scan completion time.

autovacuum_freeze_max_age · vacuum_freeze_min_age · vacuum_failsafe_age · vacuum_multixact_freeze_table_age · autovacuum · log_autovacuum_min_duration