Question

I am attempting to set up a Windows XP Test Agent running Ruby on Rails against a PostgreSQL Database. I’ve installed PostgreSQL 9.2 for Windows, with default settings. However, when I attempt to start the service from the Service Control Panel, the following error message appears(irrelevantly of which User I attempt to set it to):

   The postgres-9.2 -PostgreSQL Server 9.2 service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services 
   stop automatically if they have work to do, for example, the Performance Logs and Alerts service.

If I attempt to launch it from the command line (whether cmd.exe or git bash doesn’t matter with):

   E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\bin\pg_ctl.exe start  -D E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\data

It will claim:

   server starting

However it will fail to start (rake db:migrate will report the server as not running, the postgresql process is missing from Task Manager, the Service is listed as down in the Service List, and

  E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\bin\pg_ctl.exe stop  -D E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\data

Will report

  pg_ctl: PID file "E:/PostgreSQL/9.2/data/postmaster.pid" does not exist Is server running?

While attempting to start it as a server through pg_ctl:

  E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\bin\pg_ctl.exe runservice  -D E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\data

Fails with:

  pg_ctl: could not start service PostgreSQL: error code 1063

EDIT:

the contents of pg_hba:

 # TYPE  DATABASE        USER            ADDRESS                 METHOD
 local   all             all                all                  trust
 # IPv4 local connections:
 host    all             all                all                  trust
 host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
 # IPv6 local connections:
 #host    all             all             ::1/128                trust
 # Allow replication connections from localhost, by a user with the
 # replication privilege.
 #host    replication     all                all                 trust
 #host    replication     postgres        127.0.0.1/32           trust
 #host    replication     postgres        ::1/128                trust

Checking in pg_log as per comments below:

 2012-10-28 22:47:44 PDT LOG:  local connections are not supported by this build
 2012-10-28 22:47:44 PDT CONTEXT:  line 78 of configuration file "E:/PostgreSQL/9.2/data/pg_hba.conf"
 2012-10-28 22:47:44 PDT FATAL:  could not load pg_hba.conf

Line 78 is

 local   all             all                all                  trust

The same error still occurs when running as a service (whether through pg_ctl runservice or from the services control panel). However pg_ctl start now starts postgres without incident.

I’ll go with “good enough”

PS: The Event Log entries merely say “Timed out waiting for server startup”

Answer 1

UPDATE After edits to question:

Delete the lines from pg_hba.conf that begin with local. They relate to UNIX socket connections, which PostgreSQL does not support. Then, unless something else is also wrong, you should be able to start PostgreSQL. Most likely you copied and pasted a pg_hba.conf from a site that talks about PostgreSQL on Mac OS X or Linux, where local connections are supported.

If Pg still fails to start after fixing pg_hba.conf, check the logs again and see what else it’s complaining about.

By the way, in general I don’t recommend trying to run PostgreSQL both as a service and via pg_ctl from the same data directory. You’re likely to land up with file systems permissions problems that are difficult and annoying to resolve, especially on Windows.

---

In addition to @mvp’s suggestions, it’s possible that you are trying to start PostgreSQL under a user that is a member of the Administrators group. This is not permitted and will fail. I disagree with that policy, but that’s how it is at the moment.

By default 9.2 is set up to run under the NetworkService, so that should not be a problem. If you configured it to run under a different user account this could be your problem, and it could be the problem when running it manually too.

It’s more likely that when starting it manually you just don’t have file system permissions to the data directory.

BTW, if E:\ is FAT32, there’s your problem. FAT32 is not supported. You must use NTFS.

Rather than stab in the dark, you should really be looking at the server logs in E:\PostgreSQL\9.2\data\pg_log and the event viewer to see what’s causing it to fail to start.