Attempt start postgres server fails and gives no response?

Question

When I do on my local machine.

sudo service postgresql start

I usually get the following or some error.

* Starting PostgreSQL 9.1 database server                               [ OK ]

But when I do it on my server I get no response, not even an error message. Both my local machine and the server are ubuntu 12.04 LTS and both have postgres installed through apt-get. The only difference between the two is that my local machine is 32-bit and the server is 64-bit, but that should not matter. I tried uninstalling and installing, but the same problem occurs. How to I start postgres?

Answer 1

I've been trying to start postgresql under Upstart with no success. AFAIK, postgresql is best started the way you're trying, or with the pg_ctlcluster command.

Try:

sudo pg_ctlcluster 9.1 main start

or failing that,

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql start

The 'response' is likely in the log file. It's location depends on the settings in postgresql.conf. Check that to see what's failing.