From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
cc: =?UTF-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro_Herrera?= <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>,
        Virender Singla <virender.cse@gmail.com>,
        pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org, Aniket Jha <aniketkumarj@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Major Version Upgrade failure due to orphan roles entries in catalog
In-reply-to: <CA+TgmoYJ8Y1G1r9U7pRwnyw=8dmM0xygLguE+bdihkN8GwPuCQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <202502131716.7mgkcnrem2hn@alvherre.pgsql> <2939991.1740089974@sss.pgh.pa.us> <CA+TgmoauoiW4ydDhdrseg+DD4Kwha=+TSZp18BrJeHKx3o1Fdw@mail.gmail.com> <179448.1772033773@sss.pgh.pa.us> <CA+TgmoYFc1x11Y7AHxn6Jb0mvJ9-aPttmjqezj=YKnHmqVb-Wg@mail.gmail.com> <265501.1772038216@sss.pgh.pa.us> <CA+TgmobNKFc34nj+w6iX0zWJ1=mfYWqQS91PqsJrm4VD4o1yOw@mail.gmail.com> <296083.1772041154@sss.pgh.pa.us> <CA+TgmoYJ8Y1G1r9U7pRwnyw=8dmM0xygLguE+bdihkN8GwPuCQ@mail.gmail.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
	message dated "Wed, 25 Feb 2026 13:02:46 -0500"
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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 13:30:29 -0500
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Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 12:39 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>> Moreover, we'll emit essentially the same warning for the member case,
>>> where the warning does point to a problem that someone might want to
>>> think about correcting, and exactly the same warning against a v16+
>>> database where it indicates that something has actually gone wrong.

>> That's a fair point, but maybe it could be addressed by phrasing the
>> message differently for the different cases.

> I like that idea.

OK, so we need to pick wordings.  Right now we use this wording for
all three cases:

            /* translator: %s represents a numeric role OID */
            pg_log_warning("found orphaned pg_auth_members entry for role %s",
                           PQgetvalue(res, start, i_roleid));

I don't really love that wording for any of these cases, because
(a) "orphaned" isn't a word we use much, and (b) conflating the
role, member, and grantor doesn't seem helpful.  How about
something like

missing role:

"ignoring role grant for missing role with OID nnn"

missing member:

"ignoring role grant to missing role with OID nnn"

missing grantor, source version >= 16:

"role grant of R1 to R2 was granted by missing role with OID nnn"
with detail
"We'll dump the GRANT without a GRANTED BY clause, but this shouldn't happen."

missing grantor, source version < 16:

"role grant of R1 to R2 was granted by missing role with OID nnn"
with detail
"This state isn't unusual.  We'll dump the GRANT without a GRANTED BY clause."

(We have pg_log_warning_detail back to v16, so it's okay to rely on
a detail message.)  I feel like this could use more word-smithing,
but it's covering more or less the right ground IMO.

			regards, tom lane