Cannot kill Postgres process

Question

I keep trying to kill a PostgreSQL process that is running on port 5432 to no avail. Whenever I type sudo lsof -i :5432, I see something like the below:

COMMAND  PID     USER   FD   TYPE             DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
postgres 587 postgres    4u  IPv6 0x218f97e9af5d0303      0t0  TCP *:postgresql (LISTEN)
postgres 587 postgres    5u  IPv4 0x218f97e9ae0f6c63      0t0  TCP *:postgresql (LISTEN)

I then try to kill the process 587 in this example with sudo kill -9 587, but then another process automatically restarts on the same port! I have tried killing it on activity monitor as well to no avail. Please help?

Thanks, Laura

Do not use kill -9 on the main PostgreSQL process (the postmaster). There is the danger that some PostgreSQL backend processes don't die imediately, and if a new postmaster is started before all the old processes are gone, you will end up with data corruption. — Laurenz Albe
– Laurenz Albe, Commented Jun 17, 2017 at 18:57
Laurenz is right. Killing a Postgres process from the command line is a bad idea. You need to properly shut down Postgres (e.g. pg_ctl stop) — user330315
– user330315, Commented Jun 17, 2017 at 19:07
I have the same problem, first I'm trying to kill a user with pg_terminate_backend, without result, then I do the pg_ctl stop -mf, but with no result, just when I kill a specific session with kill -9 dies, but my server restart — Abdel P.
– Abdel P., Commented Sep 27, 2018 at 14:29

BHendricks · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-03 22:37:36Z

47

If you installed postgres using brew, this command might be what you are looking for :

brew services stop postgres

edited Apr 3, 2019 at 22:37

BHendricks

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answered Apr 26, 2018 at 12:49

Moebius

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3 Comments

J.R. Bob Dobbs Over a year ago

Error: No available formula with the name "postgres". Did you mean postgrest or postgis?

Moebius Over a year ago

@J.R.BobDobbs neither, I mean postgres

Saul Aryeh Kohn May 8 at 16:57

@J.R.BobDobbs this answer is probably what you need; you need to @ your version. stackoverflow.com/a/73157164/3826315

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

14

I have 9.5 and 9.6 installed, so

sudo su - postgres

/Library/PostgreSQL/9.6/bin/pg_ctl -D /Library/PostgreSQL/9.6/data stop

9.5 started ...

/Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/bin/pg_ctl -D /Library/PostgreSQL/9.5/data stop

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

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answered Dec 6, 2017 at 9:51

Stanislav Kr.

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Comments

epurdy · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-28 17:46:46Z

14

I had this issue and what I did to resolve it was first run

    brew services

to see a list of the services that home brew is running. In my case the service was called 'postgresql@12' so I had to run

    brew services stop postgres@12

answered Jul 28, 2022 at 17:46

epurdy

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2 Comments

Ryan Over a year ago

brew services stop postgresql@15 is what I needed. Thanks!

DragonKnight Over a year ago

it says service not found! my version is 14.

tn2000 · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-14 13:46:22Z

12

Try to run this command:

sudo pkill -u postgres

edited Feb 14, 2022 at 13:46

answered Feb 14, 2022 at 13:37

tn2000

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1 Comment

saran3h Aug 1 at 10:11

this one worked inxtead of brew commands

Steven Shi · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-27 11:19:01Z

7

list your postgres pid:

pg_ctl status -D /usr/local/var/postgres
pg_ctl: server is running (PID: 715)

force kill it..

kill -9 715

answered Sep 27, 2018 at 11:19

Steven Shi

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Comments

l'L'l · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-17 17:37:37Z

2

The process is restarting likely because it's spawned from a launchd daemon. You can try finding it and killing it through the launchctl command:

$ launchctl list

To kill a process you would:

$ launchctl kill

answered Jun 17, 2017 at 17:37

l'L'l

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2 Comments

flaurida Over a year ago

I found a few processes associated with Postgres but how do I kill them? I tried launchctl kill 5660com.postgresapp.Postgres2MenuHelper.1184 but am not getting the syntax right :/

l'L'l Over a year ago

You have to use the signal name or number also... so launchctl kill 9 ... If the process spawns again you can also try launchctl disable ... and launchctl unload. In Terminal try doing man launchctl for help.

jam · Accepted Answer · 2023-10-27 13:38:26Z

my suffering:

sudo lsof -PiTCP -sTCP:LISTEN

(replace 54011 with your PID)

ps -f -p 54011

pg_ctl status -D /opt/homebrew/var/postgres

 pg_ctl -D /opt/homebrew/var/postgres stop

but failed for me :(

my issue is with the launchctl of macos, restarting the homebrew.mxcl.postgresql service, but the suggested solutions for removing the service didn't work

launchctl bootout gui/501/homebrew.mxcl.postgres

only removes the service until the next login

and editing

vi /var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd//disabled.501.plist

by removing the lines

<key>homebrew.mxcl.postgres</key>
<false/>

didn't effect anything.

So I finally removed the postgres binary of the deamon

 rm -r /opt/homebrew/Cellar/postgresql@14

the service homebrew.mxcl.postgres is still there but no process.

the issue was in the LaunchAgent, so I removed the file

rm ~/Library/LaunchAgent/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

or in root

rm /Library/LaunchAgent/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

and

launchctl bootout gui/501/homebrew.mxcl.postgres

finally worked for me, no more homebrew.mxcl.postgres entry in launchctl list, after relogin.

Daniel · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-31 16:56:34Z

0

I had this issue trying to stop postgres. I was unable to use pg_ctl stop. I installed postgress using brew.

I eventually stumbled upon this post which solved the issue for me.

answered Oct 31, 2018 at 16:56

Daniel

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Comments

Yoshihisa Okada · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-19 04:12:43Z

0

For those who's still struggling.

You can give it a try with the steps below

brew install pstree // enables you to see structuralized tree process
pstree | grep postgre

Remember the path of the parent task

Example)
/opt/homebrew/var/postgres

Then you remove the .pid file located at the directory of the parent task

rm -rf  <path of the parent task>/postmaster.pid
kill <PID of the parent task>

I hope it works for you too :)

answered Dec 19, 2022 at 4:12

Yoshihisa Okada

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