PDA

View Full Version : Database not connecting AGAIN



huge
09-05-2009, 04:01 AM
OK I'm getting really frustrated with this. HEM is fabulous when it works, and I'd hate to go back to PT, but it's a near-constant struggle to keep it working, and now I'm completely dead in the water.

It was working fine yesterday. It seemed to be working fine this morning after the latest patch/upgrade (1.09b30). I played a tournament tonight on bodog, had HEM running to see if it would work with bodog, found out that I needed a hand grabber and that there was no support for MTTs, so I shut HEM down. When I relaunched it in order to play on Pokerstars, it can't connect to the server ... got the "transport connection / forcibly closed" message, I get the DB Control Panel window, I click "Connect", then I get a message saying "A connection to PostgreSQL could not be made. Would you like HEM to attempt to start the service?". I click YES and it says "Sorry, HEM was unable to start the service..." and then immediately says "HEM has started the service (?!?) Please try again." (what's up with the contradictory messages? Did it start or didn't it?) And of course when I try again I get the same errors.

I'm running Vista, I'm running PostgreSQL 8.3. I'm running on an account with Admin privileges, and anyway the "run as admin" check boxes are checked on the two .exe files. UAC is off, my firewall and antivirus are disabled (but when it runs, it runs fine with both enabled - it doesn't really make me happy to be told that in order to run a piece of software I have to disable my firewall and antivirus). I've rebooted my computer several times. I haven't tried uninstalling my firewall and antivirus, but ... come on ... really?

I'm sorry if I sound all pissy about this, but, well, I'm pissy. It just shouldn't be this hard. Is there hope that the software (both HEM and postgreSQL) will stabilize any time soon so that problems will crop up maybe once a month instead of twice a week? At the current level of trouble, confusion and frustration I'm starting to lean towards throwing in the towel, which would suck since I just paid for the software, and like I said, when it works it's a thing of beauty.

After all my ranting, can you suggest anything I can do to get out of the ditch again (given that I think I've seen all the usual FAQ's and posts about disabling firewalls etc)? I'm playing in a WCOOP event in about 9 hours and I'd sure like to have the HUD working for that.

huge
09-05-2009, 04:24 AM
Just for fun I tried downloading and installing the latest non-beta, 1.08.04, but that didn't help. Should I go back to an older beta? 1.09.29b seemed to be working OK. Would upgrading to Postgresql 8.4 make a difference?

netsrak
09-05-2009, 05:35 AM
This is not a problem of the HM version, its just Postgresql.

Did you reboot your computer?

Did you try to delete postmaster.pid in the postgresql\data folder and reboot again?

Here are some more tipps: http://www.holdemmanager.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8261


Sorry for your problems but they are mainly caused by Vista and Vista Updates.

huge
09-05-2009, 06:00 AM
Thanks for the reply ... deleting postmaster.pid and rebooting seems to have solved the problem. I also reinstalled the latest beta, but I'm guessing that didn't make a difference.

Is deleting that file and rebooting a general thing to try when I can't connect to the db? Or did that just get me past a specific Windows Update issue that won't come up again?

Am I likely to benefit from upgrading to postgreSQL 8.4, or should I just leave 8.3 installed?

Sorry for all the complaining in my original post, it's just hard to have one of the most important pieces of software on my computer be unpredictable. I understand that it's difficult for the developers too to deal with changes to the software that HM depends on (oddly enough I used to be a database software designer for Oracle in my pre-poker life).

thanks again ... hopefully I won't be whining again any time soon.

netsrak
09-05-2009, 10:11 AM
The postmaster.pid trick helps when the postgresql service crashed before. So i would say its the 2nd thing to try if a reboot doesn't help.

If your 8.3 is running and stable there is no need to upgrade to 8.4. There are no noticable performance enhancements. Only the installation is a bit smarter.

TheMonkMan
09-08-2009, 04:41 AM
this is a common problem for me after windows updates, and this little .PID trick worked perfectly. Cheers