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I'm upgrading to Postgres 9.2.2 (from 9.1.4). When I try to upgrade the DBs using:

pg_upgrade -b /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.1.4/bin -B /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.2/bin -d /usr/local/var/postgres91 -D /usr/local/var/postgres

I get the following error message:

Performing Consistency Checks
-----------------------------
Checking current, bin, and data directories                 ok

There seems to be a postmaster servicing the old cluster.
Please shutdown that postmaster and try again.
Failure, exiting

I've trying stopping the server, but cannot get the upgrade command to work. How to I shutdown the old postmaster?

Luciano
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4 Answers4

13

The postmaster.pid should be inside the previous version's usr/local/var folder. Simply renaming this file should solve the problem.

Luciano
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    I've come across this problem a couple of times as well and this is a good answer. Stopping all instances of postgres before upgrading ought to be pertinent as well – Jerome Aug 08 '14 at 15:32
6

In OS X Yosemite, after having installed PostgreSQL via Homebrew:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist
Sarah Vessels
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    This does not fix the problem. If pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres/ stop returns No such process, then you should rm /usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid. – Andrew Jun 27 '16 at 18:14
  • Also work after migrating from v.13 to v.14 on Big Sur – aUXcoder Oct 22 '21 at 19:34
2

On Ubuntu, stop the PostgreSQL service before performing the upgrade. This will stop all instances of postgres regardless of the versions installed.

service postgresql stop

scarver2
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  • That was it. Forgot to stop postgres service before running brew postgresql-upgrade-database with brew services stop postgresql on my MacOS. – Sergey Shcherbakov Jan 02 '23 at 23:20
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On most unix systems you'll find a init script in /etc/init.d which you can use to start, restart, reload or stop unix services.

e.g.

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql stop

If this is not available you can use pg_ctl stop

e.g.

su - postgres
bash-3.1$ pg_ctl stop  # normal stop
bash-3.1$ pg_ctl stop -m s # smart stop
bash-3.1$ pg_ctl stop -m f # fast stop
bash-3.1$ pg_ctl stop -m i # immediate stop

More about pg_ctl

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/app-pg-ctl.html

EDIT If you still get the error and you are sure the postmaster is no longer running (check with sudo ps aux | grep "postmaster" - should return one line only) you still have the pid file after a unclean shutdown

Remove the pidfile e.g.

> sudo -u postgres mv /var/lib/postgres/data-9.1/postmaster.pid /tmp
Michel Feldheim
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    When I try pg_ctl stop, I get: pg_ctl: no database directory specified and environment variable PGDATA unset. BTW, no server seems to be running: luciano$ ps auxwww | grep postgresluciano 995 0.0 0.0 2434892 548 s000 R+ 10:42PM 0:00.00 grep postgres. – Luciano Dec 18 '12 at 00:42
  • grep for postmaster –  Dec 18 '12 at 07:46
  • Updated answer with further info –  Dec 18 '12 at 13:44
  • No luck: sudo ps aux | grep "postmaster" luciano 3101 0.0 0.0 2434892 548 s002 S+ 9:12PM 0:00.00 grep postmaster – Luciano Dec 18 '12 at 23:23
  • Issue solved. See my answer. – Luciano Dec 19 '12 at 00:07