It looks like copy_from does not stop reading after an error. When the input file is short, it is okay. But when the input file is very long, it is really boring to wait for the entire file to be read just to discover there is an error on the 10th row.

bug_pg_copy_from.py

import traceback
import psycopg2

def main():
    con = psycopg2.connect(database='test', user='postgres')
    cur = con.cursor()

    try:
        cur.execute("create temp table test (id integer primary key, data text)")

        rows = iter_rows()
        copy_file = CopyFile(rows)
        cur.copy_from(copy_file, 'test')

        cur.execute("select count(*) from test")
        print "{0} rows written to database".format(cur.fetchall()[0][0])

    finally:
        cur.close()
        con.close()

def iter_rows():
    random_data = 'x' * 100
    for i in range(0, 500):
        if i == 10:
            i = 'Bad key'
            print "Yield incorrect data row (copy_from should stop reading after that)"
        else:
            print "Yield correct data row"
        yield '{0}\t{1}\n'.format(i, random_data)

class CopyFile(object):

    def __init__(self, row_reader):
        self.next_row = row_reader.next
        self.buffer = ''

    def read(self, limit=-1):
        print "Read {0} bytes".format(limit)

        try:
            buffer = self.buffer

            while limit < 0 or len(buffer) < limit:
                try:
                    buffer += self.next_row()
                except StopIteration:
                    break

            if limit < 0:
                self.buffer = ''
                return buffer
            else:
                self.buffer = buffer[limit:]
                return buffer[:limit]

        except:
            # Report unexpected errors because psycopg2 does not report them
            traceback.print_exc()
            raise

    # Method readline is required by psycopg2 but actually never called
    def readline(self, limit=-1):
        raise NotImplementedError()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()