Sporadic ValidateBinary error

["Wynn, Robin" <robin(dot)wynn(at)ngc(dot)com>]

Hi...

 

I'm using Postgres 7.3.1 (yes, I know it's old) on a number of machines running Windows 2000.  For reasons I can't get into, we cannot start Postgres as a service, we instead have a startup script that gets registered with a cron-like application.  What we are seeing is that on some machines, postgres starts normally, and all is well.  On others, it comes up in the process list, then disappears.  On still others, the problem is sporadic.  I have two debug environment dumps from one of the sporadic machines, one instance where postgres came up and one where it did not.  They are identical until they reach this point:

 

2005-07-14 20:24:33 [1764] DEBUG: -----------------------------------------

2005-07-14 20:24:33 [1764] DEBUG: FindExec: searching PATH ...

2005-07-14 20:24:33 [1764] DEBUG: FindExec: found "/jms_root/bin/postgres" using PATH

2005-07-14 20:24:33 [1764] DEBUG: invoking IpcMemoryCreate(size=1441792)

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1764] DEBUG: FindExec: searching PATH ...

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1764] DEBUG: FindExec: found "/jms_root/bin/postmaster" using PATH

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1848] LOG: database system was shut down at 2005-07-14 20:22:31 GMTST

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1848] LOG: checkpoint record is at 0/C1F690

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1848] LOG: redo record is at 0/C1F690; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1848] LOG: next transaction id: 3856; next oid: 33324

2005-07-14 20:24:37 [1848] LOG: database system is ready

 

That's an example that worked fine.  The next reboot of the machine, it failed:

 

2005-07-14 21:03:29 [2176] DEBUG: -----------------------------------------

2005-07-14 21:03:29 [2176] DEBUG: FindExec: searching PATH ...

2005-07-14 21:03:29 [2176] DEBUG: FindExec: found "/jms_root/bin/postgres" using PATH

2005-07-14 21:03:29 [2176] DEBUG: invoking IpcMemoryCreate(size=1441792)

2005-07-14 21:03:33 [2176] DEBUG: FindExec: searching PATH ...

2005-07-14 21:03:33 [2176] DEBUG: ValidateBinary: "/jms_root/bin/postmaster" is not other read/execute

 

 

The last line caught my attention, but as I said, it's the same machine, with the same postmaster executable, with the same permissions.  The user in both cases starting Postgres is SYSTEM, and SYSTEM has full control of the executable.  The sporadic nature of the problem makes me wonder if there is some sort of race condition, but I can't think of anything that would be touching the postmaster executable besides our startup script.  Does this ring any bells with anyone?  I have been digging through the archives here, but haven't seen anything, and I figured I'd get this post out because time is somewhat of the essence.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks...

 

Robin