Wiki / Configuration Parameters
deadlock_timeout
This is the amount of time to wait on a lock before checking to see if there is a deadlock condition. The check for deadlock is relatively expensive, so the server doesn't run it every time it waits for a lock. We optimistically assume that deadlocks are not common in production applications and just wait on the lock for a while before checking for a deadlock. Increasing this value reduces the amount of time wasted in needless deadlock checks, but slows down reporting of real deadlock errors. If this value is specified without units, it is taken as milliseconds. The default is one second (1s), which is probably about the smallest value you would want in practice. On a heavily loaded server you might want to raise it. Ideally the setting should exceed your typical transaction time, so as to improve the odds that a lock will be released before the waiter decides to check for deadlock. Only superusers and users with the appropriate SET privilege can change this setting. When log_lock_waits is set, this parameter also determines the amount of time to wait before a log message is issued about the lock wait. If you are trying to investigate locking delays you might want to set a shorter than normal deadlock_timeout.
English manual coverage begins with PostgreSQL 7.4. Source history and runtime observations have their own recorded version boundaries.
Reading PG 18·Select a recorded version
- boot val
- 1000
- category
- Lock Management
- context
- superuser
- documented
- true
- enumvals
- Unknown
- extra desc
- Unknown
- lang
- en
- max val
- 2147483647
- metadata version
- 18
- min val
- 1
- name
- deadlock_timeout
- short desc
- Sets the time to wait on a lock before checking for deadlock.
- source
- pg-settings-source-snapshot
- unit
- ms
- vartype
- integer
Definition PG 18
This is the amount of time to wait on a lock before checking to see if there is a deadlock condition. The check for deadlock is relatively expensive, so the server doesn't run it every time it waits for a lock. We optimistically assume that deadlocks are not common in production applications and just wait on the lock for a while before checking for a deadlock. Increasing this value reduces the amount of time wasted in needless deadlock checks, but slows down reporting of real deadlock errors. If this value is specified without units, it is taken as milliseconds. The default is one second (1s), which is probably about the smallest value you would want in practice. On a heavily loaded server you might want to raise it. Ideally the setting should exceed your typical transaction time, so as to improve the odds that a lock will be released before the waiter decides to check for deadlock. Only superusers and users with the appropriate SET privilege can change this setting. When log_lock_waits is set, this parameter also determines the amount of time to wait before a log message is issued about the lock wait. If you are trying to investigate locking delays you might want to set a shorter than normal deadlock_timeout.
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center · PostgreSQL 18 · wiki-repair-20261023:9c8bfd5def1673745ae5a9103a7da263ae2c071a1097128f32dad8f9ebae16e9
Text language: en · wiki-repair-20261023:9c8bfd5def1673745ae5a9103a7da263ae2c071a1097128f32dad8f9ebae16e9