Re: problem with psql?

Timothy Perrigo <tperrigo(at)wernervas(dot)com> writes:
> We are able to connect to the instance (using psql), but cannot shut
> down or restart the instance using pg_ctl (it just reports that the
> server is not running). We are running PostgreSQL version 8.0.0 and
> Mac OS X 10.3.9. Can anyone tell us what's going on?

Sounds to me like you're running pg_ctl with a $PGDATA setting that
doesn't match where the server actually lives. Try
"show data_directory;" in psql to verify what the server thinks $PGDATA
is.

A less likely possibility is that some outside force removed the
$PGDATA/postmaster.pid file. If that's the case, signal the postmaster
to shut down using "kill -TERM" (equivalent of normal shutdown) or "kill
-INT" (equivalent of fast shutdown) and then restart it to recreate the
pid file. ("pg_ctl stop" is actually just a wrapper around these signal
operations...)

regards, tom lane