Re: postmaster does not shut down

Jeff Deroshia <jeff(at)hal(dot)physast(dot)uga(dot)edu> writes:
> I'm running PostgreSQL 7.4 on Mac OS X server 10.3.3. When I try
> pg_ctl stop as the postgres user, it times out waiting for postmaster
> to shut down, gives a failed error, then: pg_ctl: postmaster does not
> shut down

> The only thing I'm able to do is kill -9 <pid> then rm the pid file.
> This is not very good. Anyone know what would keep postmaster from
> shutting down?

A persistent client connection. If you want to kick out active clients,
you need (IIRC) "-m fast" option to pg_ctl stop.

In any case, "kill -9" on the postmaster is a particularly horrid idea
on OSX, because there's no way to clean up the leftover shared memory
segment (since Apple doesn't provide ipcrm). My experience is that you
have to reboot to get rid of the old shmem seg if you do this. Pretend
you never learned that command, and find an alternative.

regards, tom lane