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PostgreSQL 15.1 release changes

All features, fixes, and compatibility notes in this release, with related records from other versions.

All changes in this release
All changes in this release

Includes changes after the source version through the target. A major version name means its initial release.

From PostgreSQL 9.0 onward: 17 major branches and 352 release notes. Updated 2026-09-26.

Complete release changes

15.1

2022-11-10

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26changesFeatures, fixes, improvements
1releaseGrouped by release
0CVEsVulnerability IDs mentioned in these notes

15.1 SupportedSupport ends 2027-11-11

PostgreSQL 15.1

Migration and compatibility

A dump/restore is not required for those running 15.X.

However, if you regularly create and drop tables exceeding 1GB, see the first changelog entry below.

Bug fixesFix failure to remove non-first segments of large tables

Changes

Fix failure to remove non-first segments of large tables (Tom Lane) §

PostgreSQL splits large tables into multiple files (normally with 1GB per file). The logic for dropping a table was broken and would miss removing all but the first such file, in two cases: drops of temporary tables and WAL replay of drops of regular tables. Applications that routinely create multi-gigabyte temporary tables could suffer significant disk space leakage.

Orphaned temporary-table files are removed during postmaster start, so the mere act of updating to 15.1 is sufficient to clear any leaked temporary-table storage. However, if you suffered any database crashes while using 15.0, and there might have been large tables dropped just before such crashes, it's advisable to check the database directories for files named according to the pattern NNNN.NN. If there is no matching file named just NNNN (without the .NN suffix), these files should be removed manually.

Bug fixesFix handling of DEFAULT tokens that appear in a multi-row VALUES clause of an INSERT on an updatable view

Changes

Fix handling of DEFAULT tokens that appear in a multi-row VALUES clause of an INSERT on an updatable view (Tom Lane) §

This oversight could lead to “cache lookup failed for type” errors, or in older branches even to crashes.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsDisallow rules named _RETURN that are not ON SELECT

Changes

Disallow rules named _RETURN that are not ON SELECT (Tom Lane) §

This avoids confusion between a view's ON SELECT rule and any other rules it may have.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsAvoid failure in EXPLAIN VERBOSE for a query using SEARCH BREADTH FIRST with constant initial values

Changes

Avoid failure in EXPLAIN VERBOSE for a query using SEARCH BREADTH FIRST with constant initial values (Tom Lane) §

Related records (1)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsPrevent use of MERGE on a partitioned table with foreign-table partitions

Changes

Prevent use of MERGE on a partitioned table with foreign-table partitions (Álvaro Herrera) §

The case isn't supported, and previously threw an incomprehensible error.

Bug fixesFix construction of per-partition foreign key constraints while doing ALTER TABLE ATTACH PARTITION

Changes

Fix construction of per-partition foreign key constraints while doing ALTER TABLE ATTACH PARTITION (Jehan-Guillaume de Rorthais, Álvaro Herrera) § §

Previously, incorrect or duplicate constraints could be constructed for the newly-added partition.

Related records (3)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesFix planner failure with extended statistics on partitioned or inherited tables

Changes

Fix planner failure with extended statistics on partitioned or inherited tables (Richard Guo, Justin Pryzby) §

Some cases failed with “cache lookup failed for statistics object”.

Bug fixesFix mis-ordering of WAL operations in fast insert path for GIN indexes

Changes

Fix mis-ordering of WAL operations in fast insert path for GIN indexes (Matthias van de Meent, Zhang Mingli) §

This mistake is not known to have any negative consequences within core PostgreSQL, but it did cause issues for some extensions.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesFix bugs in logical decoding when replay starts from a point between the beginning of a transaction and the beginning of its subtransaction

Changes

Fix bugs in logical decoding when replay starts from a point between the beginning of a transaction and the beginning of its subtransaction (Masahiko Sawada, Kuroda Hayato) § §

These errors could lead to assertion failures in debug builds, and otherwise to memory leaks.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsAccept interrupts in more places during logical decoding

Changes

Accept interrupts in more places during logical decoding (Amit Kapila, Masahiko Sawada) § §

This ameliorates problems with slow shutdown of replication workers.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsPrevent attempts to replicate into a foreign-table partition in replication workers

Changes

Prevent attempts to replicate into a foreign-table partition in replication workers (Shi Yu, Tom Lane) §

Although partitioned tables can have foreign tables as partitions, replicating into such a partition isn't currently supported. The logical replication worker process would crash if it was attempted. Now, an error is thrown.

Related records (2)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesAvoid crash after function syntax error in replication workers

Changes

Avoid crash after function syntax error in replication workers (Maxim Orlov, Anton Melnikov, Masahiko Sawada, Tom Lane) §

If a syntax error occurred in a SQL-language or PL/pgSQL-language CREATE FUNCTION or DO command executed in a logical replication worker, the worker process would crash with a null pointer dereference or assertion failure.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsAvoid double call of the shutdown callback of an archiver module

Changes

Avoid double call of the shutdown callback of an archiver module (Nathan Bossart, Bharath Rupireddy) §

ImprovementsAdd plan-time check for attempted access to a table that has no table access method

Changes

Add plan-time check for attempted access to a table that has no table access method (Tom Lane) §

This prevents a crash in some catalog-corruption scenarios, for example use of a view whose ON SELECT rule is missing.

Related records (3)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesPrevent postmaster crash when shared-memory state is corrupted

Changes

Prevent postmaster crash when shared-memory state is corrupted (Tom Lane) §

The postmaster process is supposed to survive and initiate a database restart if shared memory becomes corrupted, but one bit of code was being insufficiently cautious about that.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsIn libpq, handle single-row mode correctly when pipelining

Changes

In libpq, handle single-row mode correctly when pipelining (Denis Laxalde) §

The single-row flag was not reset at the correct time if pipeline mode was also active.

Related records (1)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesFix psql's exit status when a command-line query is canceled

Changes

Fix psql's exit status when a command-line query is canceled (Peter Eisentraut) §

psql -c query would exit successfully if the query was canceled. Fix it to exit with nonzero status, as in other error cases.

ImprovementsAllow cross-platform tablespace relocation in pg_basebackup

Changes

Allow cross-platform tablespace relocation in pg_basebackup (Robert Haas) §

Allow the remote path in --tablespace-mapping to be either a Unix-style or Windows-style absolute path, since the source server could be on a different OS than the local system.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesFix pg_dump's failure to dump comments attached to some CHECK constraints

Changes

Fix pg_dump's failure to dump comments attached to some CHECK constraints (Tom Lane) §

Bug fixesFix CREATE DATABASE to allow its oid parameter to exceed 231

Changes

Fix CREATE DATABASE to allow its oid parameter to exceed 231 (Tom Lane) §

This oversight prevented pg_upgrade from succeeding when the source installation contained databases with OIDs larger than that.

Bug fixesIn pg_stat_statements, fix access to already-freed memory

Changes

In pg_stat_statements, fix access to already-freed memory (zhaoqigui) §

This occurred if pg_stat_statements tracked a ROLLBACK command issued via extended query protocol. In debug builds it consistently led to an assertion failure. In production builds there would often be no visible ill effect; but if the freed memory had already been reused, the likely result would be to store garbage for the query string.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

Bug fixesFix incompatibilities with LLVM 15

Changes

Fix incompatibilities with LLVM 15 (Thomas Munro, Andres Freund) §

Related records (4)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsAllow use of __sync_lock_test_and_set() for spinlocks on any machine

Changes

Allow use of __sync_lock_test_and_set() for spinlocks on any machine (Tom Lane) §

This eases porting to new machine architectures, at least if you're using a compiler that supports this GCC builtin function.

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsRename symbol REF to REF_P to avoid compile failure on recent macOS

Changes

Rename symbol REF to REF_P to avoid compile failure on recent macOS (Tom Lane) §

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsAvoid using sprintf, to avoid compile-time deprecation warnings

Changes

Avoid using sprintf, to avoid compile-time deprecation warnings (Tom Lane) §

Related records (3)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

ImprovementsUpdate time zone data files to tzdata release 2022f for DST law changes in Chile, Fiji, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Palestine, and Syria, plus historical corrections for Chile, Crimea, Iran, and Mexico.

Changes

Update time zone data files to tzdata release 2022f for DST law changes in Chile, Fiji, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Palestine, and Syria, plus historical corrections for Chile, Crimea, Iran, and Mexico. (Tom Lane) §

Also, the Europe/Kiev zone has been renamed to Europe/Kyiv. Also, the following zones have been merged into nearby, more-populous zones whose clocks have agreed with them since 1970: Antarctica/Vostok, Asia/Brunei, Asia/Kuala_Lumpur, Atlantic/Reykjavik, Europe/Amsterdam, Europe/Copenhagen, Europe/Luxembourg, Europe/Monaco, Europe/Oslo, Europe/Stockholm, Indian/Christmas, Indian/Cocos, Indian/Kerguelen, Indian/Mahe, Indian/Reunion, Pacific/Chuuk, Pacific/Funafuti, Pacific/Majuro, Pacific/Pohnpei, Pacific/Wake and Pacific/Wallis. (This indirectly affects zones that were already links to one of these: Arctic/Longyearbyen, Atlantic/Jan_Mayen, Iceland, Pacific/Ponape, Pacific/Truk, and Pacific/Yap.) America/Nipigon, America/Rainy_River, America/Thunder_Bay, Europe/Uzhgorod, and Europe/Zaporozhye were also merged into nearby zones after discovering that their claimed post-1970 differences from those zones seem to have been errors. In all these cases, the previous zone name remains as an alias; but the actual data is that of the zone that was merged into.

These zone mergers result in loss of pre-1970 timezone history for the merged zones, which may be troublesome for applications expecting consistency of timestamptz display. As an example, the stored value 1944-06-01 12:00 UTC would previously display as 1944-06-01 13:00:00+01 if the Europe/Stockholm zone is selected, but now it will read out as 1944-06-01 14:00:00+02.

It is possible to build the time zone data files with options that will restore the older zone data, but that choice also inserts a lot of other old (and typically poorly-attested) zone data, resulting in more total changes from the previous release than accepting these upstream changes does. PostgreSQL has chosen to ship the tzdb data as-recommended, and so far as we are aware most major operating system distributions are doing likewise. However, if these changes cause significant problems for your application, a possible solution is to install a local build of the time zone data files using tzdb's backwards-compatibility options (see their PACKRATDATA and PACKRATLIST options).

Related records (5)

“Same change” requires complete matching evidence. “Related commits” can cover independent changes, a partial backport, or a follow-up correction; each release keeps its own explanation.

How is this comparison generated?

The comparison follows PostgreSQL release notes from just after the source through the target version. For a major upgrade, maintenance releases from each older branch are included only up to the next major release date, and never after the target date. A major version such as 18 means its initial release, 18.0. Previews and development snapshots are labeled separately.

Entries come from the original English manuals. Release coverage and commit evidence are verified against upstream sources. Every entry retains its complete explanation and source link. Categories aid browsing; read the full notes for impact, conditions, and migration steps.

Fixes can be backported to several branches. Confirmed duplicates are merged conservatively, with every branch explanation retained. A note describing several independent fixes is excluded only when all are already present in the source. Major-release features remain distinct from related maintenance patches unless their complete original descriptions match. Uncertain matches are retained. This is a release-note history, not an exhaustive comparison of compiled binaries.

CVE results are calculated independently from the PostgreSQL security registry and vulnerability records. A CVE counts as gained protection only when the source is affected and the target is fixed or unaffected. Remaining vulnerabilities are listed separately. Security entries and distinct CVEs are counted separately.

Interaction inspired by pgversions.com and pgversionreport. Content comes from PostgreSQL release notes. See the release notes archive.