Re: Problems Restarting PostgreSQL Daemon

Rich Shepard <rshepard(at)appl-ecosys(dot)com> writes:
> My server is rebooted infrequently, usually after a kernel upgrade and
> on very rare occasions when something causes it to hang. After rebooting I
> always have serious issues getting postgresql running again, even though the
> startup script is part of the boot sequence. Yesterday was one of those
> highly unusual hangs, and I cannot restart the service. I'd like to
> understand why.

> When I run the Slackware script, '/etc/rc.d/rc.postgresql start' (script
> attached), I'm shown a process ID and told the daemon is already running.

The short answer is probably "don't use Slackware's startup script".
Some distros have PG start scripts that have had the bugs beaten out
of them, and others not so much.

> Perhaps there's an error in the script that I'm not seeing (I didn't write
> it). Regardless, if I learn why there's a problem I can fix the script and
> avoid this delay and hassle restarting postgres after the daemon's been shut
> down.

Have you read the script to see what condition causes it to issue the
mentioned error? I'd imagine that it's looking at some other lockfile
than you think.

regards, tom lane