Christine Desmuke <cdesmuke@kshs.org> writes:
> [postgres@zu ~]$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql -U nobody
> psql: [postgres@zu ~]$
Wait a minute ... I just looked closer at your sample there. That shows
that psql *is* able to output to stderr, because it was able to print
its own name. So we've been barking up the wrong tree with the
permissions theories. What is actually happening, evidently, is that
PQerrorMessage() is returning an empty string --- or perhaps a NULL
pointer --- when it should not.
So this leads to a different conclusion, which is that there's something
broken about your libpq. I'd look at whether you're linking to the
version you think you are, and try rebuilding libpq.
(I seem to recall seeing a similar report once before, but I can't find
it in the archives right now.)
regards, tom lane