Postgres is failing with 'could not open relation mapping file "global/pg_filenode.map" '

Question

I'm having an issue with my install of postgres in my development environment and I need some help diagnosing it. I haven't yet had any luck in tracking down a solution.

I have postgres 9.0.4 installed with homebrew
I am running on OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)

I can start and stop the server

$ pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start
server starting

If I try to stop though

$ pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop -s -m fast
pg_ctl: PID file "/usr/local/var/postgres/postmaster.pid" does not exist
Is server running?

Ok this is missing

$ ls -l /usr/local/var/postgres/ | grep postmaster
$

But it is definitely running

$ ps aux | grep postgres
pschmitz   303   0.9  0.0  2445860   1428   ??  Ss    3:12PM   0:02.46 postgres: autovacuum launcher process       
pschmitz   304   0.9  0.0  2441760    428   ??  Ss    3:12PM   0:02.57 postgres: stats collector process       
pschmitz   302   0.0  0.0  2445728    508   ??  Ss    3:12PM   0:00.56 postgres: wal writer process       
pschmitz   301   0.0  0.0  2445728    560   ??  Ss    3:12PM   0:00.78 postgres: writer process       
pschmitz   227   0.0  0.1  2445728   2432   ??  S     3:11PM   0:00.42 /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.0.3/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres -r /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log

And if I try to access or use it I get this.

$psql
psql: FATAL:  could not open relation mapping file "global/pg_filenode.map": No such file or directory

But global/pg_filenode.map definitely exists in

$ls -l /usr/local/var/postgres/

...
-rw-------  1 pschmitz  staff   8192 Sep 16 15:48 pg_control
-rw-------  1 pschmitz  staff    512 Sep 16 15:48 pg_filenode.map
-rw-------  1 pschmitz  staff  12092 Sep 16 15:48 pg_internal.init

I have attempted to uninstall and reinstall to no effect. Any ideas on how I can solve this? It has pretty much prevented me from getting anything done today.

Does your log file (/usr/local/var/postgres/server.log) say anything useful about this? — ed., Sep 16 '11 at 14:18
Also it might be useful to see the whole contents of /usr/local/var/postgres/ if possible. — ed., Sep 16 '11 at 14:21
IMHO the directory /usr/local/var should be owned by postgres.postgres. Postgres cannot find them because of lack of access rights. — wildplasser, Sep 16 '11 at 14:30

score 32 · Answer 1 · edited May 31 '13 at 16:07

32

I am not sure what the source of my original problem was with 9.0.3 because I was getting this problem:

psql: FATAL:  could not open relation mapping file "global/pg_filenode.map": No such file or directory

However as stated above it turns out that the running process was for my previous postgres install of 9.0.3

I believe I had an old version org.postgresql.postgres.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

I had to:

Remove and re-add the launch agent
Kill the processes for 9.0.3
Initialize the db initdb /usr/local/var/postgres
Restart my computer

and now I have it up and working.

edited May 31 '13 at 16:07

Richard D

327
3
16

answered Sep 17 '11 at 22:51

bullfight

1,073
1
9
10

1

This also worked for me. Though I didn't need to do the first step. – Daryll Santos Dec 05 '13 at 00:49

score 26 · Answer 2 · answered May 11 '19 at 10:52

26

Encountered this problem using mdillon/postgis:9.6 Docker image. Simple sudo docker restart <container id> solved the problem.

answered May 11 '19 at 10:52

1valdis

1,009
1
15
27

1

Wow, tried everything. I had removed the data file, and inserted a backup. Restarting the container (and thus the process) did the trick! – gabn88 May 16 '19 at 16:26
This suggest helps me. good one – Duhamel Aug 03 '22 at 14:53

score 14 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 12 '21 at 07:40

14

That may be a permission issue, check the owner and group of configuration files in /var/lib/pgsql/9.3/data/

chown -R postgres:postgres /var/lib/pgsql/9.3/data/

edited Nov 12 '21 at 07:40

Nimantha

6,405
6
28
69

answered Mar 06 '15 at 12:41

user4640867

149
1
2

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered May 09 '13 at 21:34

8

I just encountered this problem. Solved it by setting the owner of the postgres data directory to the unprivileged postgres user.

answered May 09 '13 at 21:34

hd1

33,938
5
80
91

1

I used `sudo chown -R postgres /usr/local/var/postgres` to do this – Adam Starrh Nov 05 '16 at 19:49

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:37

5

ps aux | grep postgres revealed I had another instance of postgres running on a temp data directory from a previous test run. Killing this process fixed the problem.

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:37

Owen Pauling

11,349
20
53
64

raratiru · Answer 6 · 2017-06-15T15:58:38.613

My step-by-step solution in fedora:

/bin/systemctl stop postgresql.service (Stop the service)
rm -rf /var/lib/pgsql/data (Remove the "data" direcotry)
postgresql-setup initdb (Recreate the "data" directory)
/bin/systemctl start postgresql.service (Start the service)

It is also useful to check the permissions of the "data" directory:

chown -R postgres:postgres <path_to_data_dir>

(Kudos to @LuizFernandodaSilva & @user4640867)

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 29 '13 at 22:16

2

I had an old value of PGDATA confusing things.

answered May 29 '13 at 22:16

Chris

820
7
22

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered May 18 '16 at 20:15

This (https://gist.github.com/olivierlacan/e1bf5c34bc9f82e06bc0) solved my problem! I first had to:

Delete Postgres.app from my Applications
Delete /usr/local/var/postgres directory
initdb /usr/local/var/postgres/

Then I was able to start/stop Postgres with these 2 commands:

Start:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start

Stop:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop -s -m fast

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 16:00

My solution to this problem:
I am running postgresql-9.3

My plist file is in the following directory:/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.edb.launchd.postgresql-9.3.plist

Step 1 will stop postgres
1. $ sudo launchctl stop com.edb.launchd.postgresql-9.3
Start postgres using the following command (can find this location using $ brew info postgres)
2. $ postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 11 '14 at 16:40

1

I agree about all of the above solutions. I was running Postgres on a server, and the problem was that I was using a PORT number that was used by some other OLDER version of Postgres.

I only needed to change the port.

answered Apr 11 '14 at 16:40

MFARID

700
1
12
18

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered May 05 '14 at 19:09

I had the same error psql: FATAL: could not open relation mapping file "global/pg_filenode.map": No such file or directory.

Thanks for note #2 above: 'Kill the processes for 9.0.3'

I previously configured and compiled PostgreSQL. I then decided to reconfigure, gmake, gmake install with different file paths. The newly compiled program wasn't finding 'pg_filenode.map' in the expected filepath. Killing the running postgres process, emptying pgsql/data, and doing initdb again allowed creation of a new database.

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 17 '21 at 10:32

0

Make sure to turn off you antivirus. In my case when i turn off the antivirus(kaspersky) it worked fine Ref : https://github.com/PostgresApp/PostgresApp/issues/610

answered Aug 17 '21 at 10:32

saravanan saminathan

584
1
5
18

Wasif Ali · Answer 13 · 2023-09-01T10:07:36.697

0

just grant permission using the command line:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/*

edited Sep 01 '23 at 10:07

answered Sep 01 '23 at 10:05

Wasif Ali

1
2

Postgres is failing with 'could not open relation mapping file "global/pg_filenode.map" '

13 Answers13

Linked