Re: PG service restart failure (start getting ahead of stop?)

"George Pavlov" <gpavlov@mynewplace.com> writes:
> We have a nightly restart of one PG database.

Just out of curiosity, what for?  I can't imagine any really good reason
for just shutting down the postmaster and immediately restarting it.

> So it looks like the STOPPING of the service actually succeeded, albeit
> it took a while (more than the usual sessions open?). The STARTING is
> the one that actually failed (is that because the STOP was still in
> process?).  The question is why -- in a RESTART situation
> wouldn't/shouldn't the START part wait for the STOP part to complete
> (regardless of how long it takes)?

Well, this'd depend on the details of the postgres init script you're
using, which you gave no hint about (and yes, there are a *ton* of
different versions out there).  The one I'm currently shipping for Red
Hat would give up waiting after a minute, but it should report failure
not success in that case.

            regards, tom lane