Process 2:
 - running ANALYZE VERBOSE and pg_total_relation_size every second

The result is that autovacuum appears to be canceled.

Yes, that will pretty much guarantee that an autovacuum is never able to
complete...

That's what I figured. Since I won't be running ANALYZE under normal circumstances this should all work fine...
What concerns me is that once the size has grown, even a VACUUM FULL
doesn't recover the space. Regular external VACUUMs keep the table at
around 10MB but if I use autovacuum and it grows to 40MB, a VACUUM FULL
will only get it down to 35MB. Is it possible that a canceled autovacuum
could result in permanently lost space?

Are you measuring index as well as table size?  VACUUM FULL is no good
at compacting indexes.

I am measuring pg_total_relation_size which I believe includes indexes. How does one go about compacting indexes if a VACUUM doesn't do the trick? I see that a recommendation is to drop and recreate the indexes. If one has a system running 24-7, then this might not be feasible.

Thanks
Stuart

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