Could not connect to Postgresql on Mac OS X after Installation

Question

So I installed Postgresql onto my Mac and whenever I run anything like psql or createdb cool_database_name I get the following error.

psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

So I follow along the different solutions. I reinstall postgresql to no avail. I go to postgresql.conf` and change it to

#port = 5432                             # (change requires restart)
#max_connections = 20                    # (change requires restart)
# Note:  Increasing max_connections costs ~400 bytes of shared memory per
# connection slot, plus lock space (see max_locks_per_transaction).
#superuser_reserved_connections = 3     # (change requires restart)
#unix_socket_directory = '/var/pgsql_socket'             # (change requires restart)
#unix_socket_group = ''                 # (change requires restart)
#unix_socket_permissions = 0777         # begin with 0 to use octal notation

yet still nothing. I run commands such as

ls -lA /var/run/postgresql

Which tell me the file or directory does not exist.

I also check into the pg_hba.conf file but everything looks ok

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local   all             all                                     trust
# IPv4 local connections:
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.
#local   replication     jason                                trust
#host    replication     jason        127.0.0.1/32            trust
#host    replication     jason        ::1/128                 trust

When I run psql -h localhost I get

psql: could not connect to server: Connection refused
    Is the server running on host "localhost" (::1) and accepting
    TCP/IP connections on port 5432?
could not connect to server: Connection refused
    Is the server running on host "localhost" (127.0.0.1) and accepting
    TCP/IP connections on port 5432?
could not connect to server: Connection refused
    Is the server running on host "localhost" (fe80::1) and accepting
    TCP/IP connections on port 5432?

I'm at a lost as to how to fix this. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The problem is that Mac OS ships PostgreSQL

$ `which psql` --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.1.4
contains support for command-line editing

You need change PATH like this:

export PATH="path_to_bin_folder_of_your_new_postgres_install:$PATH"

e.g., for Postgres.app:

export PATH="/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/MacOS/bin:$PATH"

This might be useful: http://blog.ringerc.id.au/2012/09/postgresql-packaging-on-mac-os-x-is-mess.html