# Got a lot of "Failed to backfill 'Reader' badge" errors

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/got-a-lot-of-failed-to-backfill-reader-badge-errors/365756
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [May 12, 2025, 4:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/got-a-lot-of-failed-to-backfill-reader-badge-errors/365756 "2025-05-12T16:14:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 3

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### Author: ![JammyDodger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jammydodger/32/254611_2.png) [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/got-a-lot-of-failed-to-backfill-reader-badge-errors/365756/3 "2025-05-12T20:52:07Z")

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Could this be an issue with a particularly large topic? Do you have any megatopics that might be a burden for it?

If the badge grant job is being blocked entirely because of it, it could be an idea to temporarily disable the Reader badge and see if that helps.

* * *

I did find this on what seems to be a similar issue: (though quite old)

> [@PostgreSQL runaway IO](https://meta.discourse.org/t/postgresql-runaway-io/91516/31):
>
> It is inherently extremely expensive to figure out if a user read EVERY single post on a topic across all topics across all users. If you don’t have the hardware to handle that I would recommend just disabling the reader badge. I am on the fence big time on the value of “calculateavgtime” I am not convinced we even need this long term

So it could be that the query is too much for your spec?

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