Re: Unhelpful initdb error message

Thom Brown <thom(at)linux(dot)com> writes:
> Looking back through my terminal log, one thing might lend a clue from
> before I tried rebuliding it:

> thom(at)swift:~/Development$ pg_ctl stop
> waiting for server to shut down....cd .postgre.s
> .............
> ....

> ....^C
> thom(at)swift:~/Development$ pg_ctl stop
> pg_ctl: could not send stop signal (PID: 2807): No such process
> thom(at)swift:~/Development$ ps -ef | grep postgres
> postgres 1199 1 0 Mar04 ? 00:00:01
> /usr/lib/postgresql/9.1/bin/postgres -D /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main
> -c config_file=/etc/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf
> postgres 1273 1199 0 Mar04 ? 00:00:18 postgres: writer
> process
> postgres 1274 1199 0 Mar04 ? 00:00:14 postgres: wal writer
> process
> postgres 1275 1199 0 Mar04 ? 00:00:03 postgres: autovacuum
> launcher process
> postgres 1276 1199 0 Mar04 ? 00:00:02 postgres: stats
> collector process
> thom 16476 4302 0 15:30 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto postgres

Hm. It looks like pg_ctl found a PID file pointing to a non-existent
process, which is a bit like what you're seeing initdb do.

I wonder whether this is somehow caused by conflicting settings for
PGDATA. Do you have a setting for that in your environment, or .bashrc
or someplace, that is different from what you're trying to use?

regards, tom lane