I've seen this happen. I think it happens because we have a Postgres database that is serving multiple webservers getting a high level of traffic. If you try to shut down the database while the webservers are still initiating connections to it, pg_ctl has trouble shutting it down, even with -m fast. But if you can stop the webservers from initiating new connections before you try and shut down the db, pg_ctl works fine.
Heather Johnson
Senior Database Programmer
New York Post
-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org
To: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Sent: 10/28/2004 12:38 PM
Subject: [ADMIN] pg_ctl stop -m fast
Hi,
One of our customers complains about
pg_ctl stop -m fast
could not shutdown PG server though we cannot reproduce the same problem
here.
They claim only "-m immediate" can take PG down after 10 minutes of
issuing "-m fast".
The PG version is 7.3.2.
What might prevent "-m fast" to shutdown PG (long transaction, etc.)?
What should I do to help the customer solve this issue?
Thanks,