Richard Huxton <dev@archonet.com> writes:
> surabhi.ahuja wrote:
>> So, I try starting postmaster. and it displays the following error
>> message: HINT: If you're sure there are no old server processes
>> still running, remove the shared memory block with the command "ipcr
>> m", or just delete the file
>> "/export/home1/sdc_image_pool/dbx/postmaster.pid".
>>
>> does it means that i will have to delete the postmaster.pid file ..in
>> such a scenarion always?
> No, only when it doesn't close down properly. Check your system logs to
> see what happened.
Also, what PG version is this exactly? More recent versions have better
defenses against being fooled by stale postmaster.pid files. It matters
what postmaster startup script you're using, too.
regards, tom lane