Rich Shepard <rshepard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > I tried following the logic, and it appears the issue now is 'invalid data > in PID file "/var/lib/pgsql/data/postmaster.pid" '. If I delete that file, > is it automatically recreated? I'm using /usr/bin/pg_ctl as user postgres. If you're certain there's no postmaster running, it's safe to remove postmaster.pid. However you really shouldn't have to; the postmaster is generally able to figure out whether a pidfile is live or not. The "invalid data" bit is interesting though. It looks like pg_ctl would produce that error if the pidfile exists but is empty when it looks. This seems like a race condition hazard, though the odds of hitting it are tiny. What's in the file exactly? regards, tom lane
