Re: Postgres 9.2.4 for Windows (Vista) Dell Vostro 400, re-installation failure PLEASE CAN SOMEONE HELP!!

Hi Thomas

**Thanks for getting back to me**

In answer to your points:

1)      I could not get Postgresql to run correctly, so I assumed it could be a bug. I checked the documentation for bug reports, and this seemed to suggest that anything that appears to be a bug should be reported. If a decision is made that this is not a bug, it would be helpful if someone sent a short message to say so, and tell me to report my problem elsewhere. Otherwise I just sit there waiting and nothing happens!!

5) There does not appear to be a specific ‘Uninstall’ option on the Windows Start menu, so I went to Control Panel, Programs and features, PostgreSQL 9.2 Uninstall/Change option. Is this correct?

6) I have not performed an upgrade of Postgres. Inititially, I had no Postgres, then I installed postgresql-9.2.4-1-windows.exe, then I forgot my password as was using Navicat that remembers it automatically and tried to use pgAdmin which doesn’t, so I tried to reinstall (then of course remembered my password!). I have not been able to get Postgres to work correctly/connect since.

-Thank-you for confirming there are no hidden users –I spent many web searches trying to work out how to remove/reset these (whew)!!

No, I did not verify that Postgres was running, but have since checked in the Task Manager and it is running when I fire up pgAdmin. However, I should not get any error message during the install process, and to me this clearly suggests something is wrong, as the log I attached shows. Any ideas what is wrong please?

I would not normally do anything in the Registry, as I am aware that is asking for trouble. However, I hadn’t noted that I could specify a data location on my original install, so I checked the web and this appeared to be the only way to do this for some programs. I edited PostgreSQL|Installations|postgresql-9.2|Data Directory and changed the default from the C: drive to my folder on the D: drive as D:\_SDB\Database\RDBMS\PostgreSQL\9.2\data. This worked fine until I had the password problems I mentioned above, and tried to do a reinstall, so I don’t think this registry edit is causing the problem. I have only recently found the postgresql.conf option on pgAdmin.

Where/what is init.db? I don’t have any instructions for this file. Not sure what you mean.

I too am now puzzled about pg.log. I think I believed this was related to ‘hidden’ Windows users which you say are not now used, so please disregard this point now.

I realise that new versions of Postgres go into a different file system on the C: drive, and that I can’t just move the system files across or rename directories. However, in this case I am trying to reinstall exactly the same version, so everything should be the same, so surely it should be okay to move my old data out of the way, remove the folder it was in, perform the reinstall and move the data back? Maybe it isn’t. I was not aware of this pg_dump/pg_restore, as these instructions are intended for upgrades, which of course I would not have read, as I am trying to perform a reinstall of the same version. Therefore I will try to perform a dump, then I guess remove all my Postgres folders in D:, then reinstall Postgres and run pg_restore to bring everything back in (though this doesn’t explain the errors in the installation log).

Regarding the password, I have typed in the same password which I used everytime I tried to install Postgres, so I started to think there was an install problem as listed in the installation log. The installation process paused with a popup error message which I did not have the first time I installed Postgres, and the log file indicates a return code other that ‘0’ near the end, so there is a problem there. Are there any restrictions on characters that can be used in passwords? I used a ‘complex’ password selecting one character from: # - < > ? @ \ /. If I entered the wrong password several times and performed a reinstall, does Postgres continue to lock me out after so many attempts, even if I perform a reinstall? Could this be the problem, and if so, how do I get around it?

Apologies this is a long response, but you have raised a number of important points.

Many thanks

  Stephen

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Stephen Brearley wrote on 29.07.2013 21:23:

> 1.Explain why my bug report has not been responded to

Because it's not a bug as you simply upgraded incorrectly.

> 5.Tell me how I should uninstall Postgres, if I am doing this wrong

You did run the "Uninstall", did you?

> 6.Tell me how to remove any hidden users or how I should reset/remove directories etc.

There are no hidden users - especially not with 9.2 (previous versions did create a new Windows user, but that is not the case with 9.2). Unfortunately you failed to mention from which version you upgraded.

> On re-installing Postgres, I have not been able to get it to work.

> During re-installation I get an error message saying the program

> exited with an error code, but otherwise appears to be okay. However,

> when I go into pgadmin and enter my password to connect to the server

> (any password gives the same response), I get a popup saying ‘Server

> doesn’t listen’, could not connect, connection refused etc’. The

> setup defaults to port 5432 during the install process. I’ve checked

> postgresql.conf which has not been installed, but I’ve looked at an

> old copy that I moved into the data folder, and that looks at port

> 5432.

And did you verify that Postgres was actually running (e.g. by looking into the taskmanager)

> Postgres was working okay before, so I don’t think it’s a problem

> with my system or firewall, as I have not changed anything. After my

> initial install, I edited the registry to point to the D: drive, as I

> prefer to have my data stored on a separate partition, and this

> worked okay.

What exactly did you "edit in the registry"? You shouldn't normally need to do that if you ran initdb correctly.

> Consequently it will not allow me access to pg.log

What is "pg.log"?

> The Postgres install will not install with a data folder that is not empty,

>so I had to re-name my data folder to data_old, and moved the contents back in

> afterwards.

What was the version before? If you upgrade from a major version to another (e.g. from 9.1 to 9.2) you can't just "copy" the data folder. You need to migrate it using pg_upgrade (which requires the old server to be still installed) or you need to use pg_dump and pg_restore to get the data from the old install into the new one.

This is clearly documented in the manual.

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/upgrading.html

> The registry seems to be pointing to the right place to find my data.

Again it should not be necessary to edit anything in the registry.

If you need to change the Windows service (which I assume you tried to do with hacking the registry) you should use pg_ctl for that.

> I don’t seem to be able to get anywhere with pgadmin, as

> when I try to connect I get a fatal password authentication error

> now.

Which means the server *is* running, you simply supplied the wrong password.

> pgadmin.log

> 2013-07-18 11:17:56 ERROR  : Error connecting to the server: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "SDB"

That is not the logfile from your installation, it's a "normal" message from pgadmin that the password supplied for the user SDB was wrong. That has nothing to do with re-installing Postgres and clearly nothing with the "hidden" users you were referring to.

So apparently your new version **is** running correctly, you just have the wrong credentials.

> The main difficulty seems to be trying to re-install Postgres. If you

> already have created a database, the install program balks at having

> a data folder that is not empty, causing me to use the above

> workaround to copy back my data afterwards. Should be able to do

> this!

Again: the upgrade process is clearly documented in the manual.

Thomas