Re: restart error

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 01:28:37PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Ray Stell <stellr@cns.vt.edu> writes:
> > [postgresql@stell ~]$ pg_ctl restart  -D /var/pgsql/data
> > waiting for postmaster to shut down............................................................... failed
> > pg_ctl: postmaster does not shut down
> > [postgresql@stell ~]$
>
> > yet postmaster is gone:
>
> Looking at the code, it seems that pg_ctl is waiting for the postmaster
> lock file (/var/pgsql/data/postmaster.pid) to disappear.  Perhaps you've
> got some kind of file permissions bollix that prevented the postmaster
> from removing that file?


Turns out I had an open session in another shell I'd
forgotten about.  I tried again with similar results and
as I sent \q on the outstanding session, pm went down instantly:

[postgresql@wireworm global]$ pg_ctl stop -D /usr/pgsql/data
waiting for postmaster to shut down.................................................. done
postmaster stopped

Also, kill -15 on active psql sessions let postmaster go down quickly.