"Albe Laurenz" <laurenz.albe@wien.gv.at> writes:
> wouldn't it be a good thing
> for the startup process to ignore (and rename) the backup_label
> file if no recovery.conf is present?
No, it certainly wouldn't.
I don't see why we should simplify the bizarre case you're talking about
at the price of putting land mines under the feet of people who are
actually trying to do a restore. It hasn't lost any data for you,
and it gave you a correct HINT, so I don't have a problem with the
current behavior.
regards, tom lane