Re: postmaster: address already in use

Markus Wagner <wagner@imsd.uni-mainz.de> writes:
> my postmaster suddenly begins to make problems. It was running fine, but
> then:
> FATAL: StreamServerPort: bind() failed: Address already in use
>         Is another postmaster already running on that port?
>         If not, remove socket node (/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432) and retry.
> /sys/svr/pgs/bin/postmaster: cannot create UNIX stream port

> There is no other postmaster running and there is no socket node file in
> /tmp

That's really weird.  Is it possible that there are still some old
clients holding open connections on that socket address, even though
you shut down the old postmaster?

For INET sockets, there's a timeout in many kernels, such that the
address that had been used for an INET socket is considered "in use"
for a few minutes after you close the socket.  I've never heard of
any similar behavior for Unix sockets, however.  Ideas anyone?
        regards, tom lane