Abort a statement waiting too long for a lock.
At a glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Parameter | lock_timeout |
| Category | Client Defaults |
| Default | 0 |
| Value type | time (ms/s/min) |
| Change scope | Per-session (SET) |
What it does
Limits how long a statement waits to acquire a lock before aborting (SQLSTATE 55P03). 0 disables.
How to apply a change
Can be set per session with SET, per role/database with ALTER ROLE/DATABASE ... SET, or globally in postgresql.conf.
Inspect the current value and source with SHOW lock_timeout; or SELECT name, setting, unit, context, source FROM pg_settings WHERE name = 'lock_timeout';.
Tuning guidance
Set a short value (e.g. 2-5s) before DDL/migrations so a blocked ALTER TABLE fails fast instead of queuing behind it and blocking every following query.