admin_shutdown terminating connection due to administrator command — 57P01

Symptoms

The session was forcibly terminated by an administrator (or by pg_terminate_backend()), or as part of a server operation. PostgreSQL raises SQLSTATE 57P01 (admin_shutdown) and the connection closes.

• Unlike a cancel, the whole connection is dropped.
• Often issued to clear a stuck or idle-in-transaction session.
• The client must reconnect.

What the server log shows

FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command

Why PostgreSQL raises this — what the manual says

Section 9.28.2 Server Signaling Functions:

“Terminates the session whose backend process has the specified process ID.”

A terminate request signals the target backend to exit. The backend rolls back any open transaction and closes the connection, reporting 57P01 to the client. This also occurs during certain shutdown/restart scenarios.

Common causes

• An admin ran pg_terminate_backend(pid).
• A connection killed for being idle-in-transaction too long.
• Server restart/failover dropping existing sessions.

How to fix it

1. Reconnect and retry; make the application resilient to dropped connections.
2. Investigate why the session was terminated (long idle, blocking others).
3. Use connection pooling that transparently re-establishes sessions.

Related & next steps

• SQLSTATE 57P01 — Admin Shutdown (full reference)
• Message: terminating connection because of crash of another server process
• Glossary: Backend

Reference: PostgreSQL 18 Section 9.28 “System Administration Functions”.