57P03

At a glance

57P03 is emitted during connection startup when the database has not reached a connection-ready state. Fixed guards distinguish startup, shutdown, recovery, disabled hot standby, and two different not-yet-consistent recovery states.

Meaning

The startup packet is rejected before normal authentication is completed. Every fixed branch uses FATAL, so the attempted connection ends rather than entering a client transaction. The primary alone is not enough for the hot-standby branches: detail distinguishes a disabled feature, a recovery snapshot that is not ready, and recovery that has not reached a consistent state.

Messages

• Startup gate: primary the database system is starting up, FATAL.
• Hot standby disabled: primary the database system is not accepting connections, FATAL; detail Hot standby mode is disabled.
• Recovery snapshot not ready: primary the database system is not yet accepting connections, FATAL; detail Recovery snapshot is not yet ready for hot standby.; hint To enable hot standby, close write transactions with more than %d subtransactions on the primary server.
• Recovery not consistent: primary the database system is not yet accepting connections, FATAL; detail Consistent recovery state has not been yet reached.
• Shutdown gate: primary the database system is shutting down, FATAL.
• Recovery gate: primary the database system is in recovery mode, FATAL.

Diagnosis

Capture primary/detail/hint, the startup phase, hot-standby setting, recovery consistency/snapshot state, server readiness log, and target server role. A repeated not yet accepting response with the snapshot detail points to the primary-side subtransaction condition named by the hint; the consistent-recovery detail points to an earlier recovery gate. Do not treat these as a transaction stuck in INERROR: the connection was refused before a session transaction existed.

Response

Use bounded backoff and wait for the relevant startup, shutdown, or recovery transition. If hot standby is intentionally disabled, remember that hot_standby is a PGC_POSTMASTER setting: change the configuration source owned by the server and restart the server; a SIGHUP/reload cannot activate this setting. If the hint identifies long primary write transactions, resolve that operational cause. Establish a new connection after readiness. There is no transaction on the rejected startup path to roll back; if a prior client operation was disconnected during a transition, verify its business result before replaying it.

Versions

The locked catalogue records this condition from 7.4; that boundary does not prove the exact implementation-introduction version. Fixed source coverage is PostgreSQL 18.6.

Related

57P01, 57P04, 08001

Sources

src/backend/tcop/backend_startup.c#L298-338

src/backend/utils/misc/guc_tables.c#L1895-1903

The structured evidence record records all fixed startup gates and the source/runtime boundary.

Source evidence

Evidence belongs to the frozen source and runtime versions listed here. It is not a runtime verification of the selected manual version.

• src/backend/utils/errcodes.txt · REL_18_6 ·
  724edf9bde9d356724ad384a2e196edc3c9f80f7
• src/backend/tcop/backend_startup.c · REL_18_6 ·
  724edf9bde9d356724ad384a2e196edc3c9f80f7
• src/backend/utils/misc/guc_tables.c · REL_18_6 ·
  724edf9bde9d356724ad384a2e196edc3c9f80f7

Message templates

the database system is starting up

the database system is not accepting connections

Hot standby mode is disabled.

the database system is not yet accepting connections

Recovery snapshot is not yet ready for hot standby.

To enable hot standby, close write transactions with more than %d subtransactions on the primary server.

the database system is not yet accepting connections

Consistent recovery state has not been yet reached.

the database system is shutting down

the database system is in recovery mode

Reproduction & repair cases

No reproduction case is attached to this condition.

Recorded runtime evidence

No runtime observation is attached to this entry.