Postgres could not connect to server

Question

After I did brew update and brew upgrade, my postgres got some problem. I tried to uninstall postgres and install it again, but it didn't work as well.

This is the error message. (I also got this error message when I try to do rake db:migrate)

$ psql 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"? 

How can I solve it?

Mac version: Mountain lion.

homebrew version: 0.9.3

postgres version: psql (PostgreSQL) 9.2.1

And this is what I did:

$ brew uninstall postgresql Uninstalling /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.1... $ brew uninstall postgresql Uninstalling /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.1.4... $ psql --version bash: /usr/local/bin/psql: No such file or directory $ brew install postgresql ==> Downloading http://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.2.1/postgresql-9.2.1.tar.bz2 Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/postgresql-9.2.1.tar.bz2 ...... ...... ==> Summary /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.1: 2814 files, 38M, built in 2.7 minutes $ initdb /usr/local/var/postgres -E utf8 The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "laigary". This user must also own the server process.  The database cluster will be initialized with locale "en_US.UTF-8". The default text search configuration will be set to "english".  initdb: directory "/usr/local/var/postgres" exists but is not empty If you want to create a new database system, either remove or empty the directory "/usr/local/var/postgres" or run initdb with an argument other than "/usr/local/var/postgres". $ mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents $ cp /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.1/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ $ launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist homebrew.mxcl.postgresql: Already loaded $ pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start server starting $ env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install pg Building native extensions.  This could take a while... Successfully installed pg-0.14.1 1 gem installed $ psql --version psql (PostgreSQL) 9.2.1 $ psql 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"?

Now, after I reinstalled homebrew, when I use $ psql, it doesn't show any error message.

But I run rake db:migrate in my Rails app, it shows:

could not connect to server: No such file or directory     Is the server running locally and accepting     connections on Unix domain socket "/var/pgsql_socket/.s.PGSQL.5432"?  /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1213:in `initialize' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1213:in `new' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1213:in `connect' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:329:in `initialize' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:28:in `new' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:28:in `postgresql_connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:309:in `new_connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:319:in `checkout_new_connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:241:in `block (2 levels) in checkout' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:236:in `loop' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:236:in `block in checkout' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:233:in `checkout' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:96:in `block in connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:95:in `connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:404:in `retrieve_connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:170:in `retrieve_connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:144:in `connection' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:107:in `rescue in create_database' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:51:in `create_database' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:40:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:40:in `each' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-3.2.8/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:40:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:205:in `call' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:205:in `block in execute' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:200:in `each' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:200:in `execute' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:158:in `block in invoke_with_call_chain' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:151:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/task.rb:144:in `invoke' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:116:in `invoke_task' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:94:in `block (2 levels) in top_level' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:94:in `each' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:94:in `block in top_level' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:88:in `top_level' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:66:in `block in run' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling' /usr/local/Cellar/ruby/1.9.3-p327/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rake/application.rb:63:in `run' /usr/local/bin/rake:32:in `<main>' Couldn't create database for {"adapter"=>"postgresql", "encoding"=>"unicode", "database"=>"riy_development", "pool"=>5, "username"=>nil, "password"=>nil}

Finally I've found a solution.

sudo mkdir /var/pgsql_socket/ sudo ln -s /private/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432 /var/pgsql_socket/ 

This solution is a little tricky, but it works. Hope anyone has a better solution

Update

This works for me as well.

rm /usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid 

Answer 1

Had a similar problem; a pid file was blocking postgres from starting up. To fix it:

$ rm /usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid $ brew services restart postgresql 

and then all is well.

---

UPDATE:

For Apple M1 (Big Sur) users, do this instead:

$ rm /opt/homebrew/var/postgres/postmaster.pid $ brew services restart postgresql 

Answer 2

This sometimes happens when brew does a postgres upgrade, causing the data files to become incompatible with the new server.

In my case, it happened when upgrading from 9.3 to 9.4.

OS X/Homebrew:

Try running postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres -- it will give you a much more verbose output if postgres fails to start. Or open the log file at /usr/local/var/log/postgres.log (/opt/homebrew/var/log/postgres.log on Mac M1) and look for the line "FATAL: database files are incompatible with server"

In my case, running rm -rf /usr/local/var/postgres && initdb /usr/local/var/postgres -E utf8 removed my old databases and then reinitialized the postgres db schema. (THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR DATA)

Thanks to https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/35240 for that solution. Full instructions for a thorough re-install can be found here: How to completely uninstall and reinstall Homebrew Postgres - Test Double Blog (Again, if you're on an M1 Mac then substitute the /opt/homebrew/var path wherever it says /usr/local/var)

After regenerating my databases (with rake db:create) everything worked fine again.

Finally, links in the comments point to this possible solution that preserves your data, but I haven't tried it: How to upgrade PostgreSQL from version 9.6 to version 10.1 without losing data - Stack Overflow