On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 12:13:15AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: > I think you're getting bit by a standard beginner gotcha: commenting out > an entry in postgresql.conf will not change the state of a running > postmaster. (A comment is a no-op, eh?) You need to put in a > non-comment entry that sets the desired state. > There's been various discussions in the past about making this behavior > less non-intuitive, but nothing's been settled on ... So what about deciding now that it should be changed. What are the reasons for why it should be kept as it is? I've found "pg_ctl reports succes when start fails" in the archives but without someone voting against changing it. Does anybody have better pointers? I propose to change it on the grounds that: - other unix daemons reset their values to defaults before reading conffiles - lots of people find it unintuitive - after restarting pgsql you can never be sure that it runs with the same configuration as before even with an unchanged postgresql.conf The mtime of postgresql.conf then makes you think that it has been running fine with these options for the last 3 months so you don't even take a look at the conf file but look for the problem elsewhere... Joachim -- Joachim Wieland joe@xxxxxxxxxxx C/ Usandizaga 12 1°B ICQ: 37225940 20002 Donostia / San Sebastian (Spain) GPG key available