Postgresql - unable to drop database because of some auto connections to DB

Question

Whenever I try to drop database I get:

ERROR:  database \"pilot\" is being accessed by other users
DETAIL:  There is 1 other session using the database.


        

Answer 1

In terminal try this command:

ps -ef | grep postgres

you will see like:

501 1445 3645 0 12:05AM 0:00.03 postgres: sasha dbname [local] idle

The third number (3645) is PID.

You can delete this

sudo kill -9 3645

And after that start your PostgreSQL connection.

Start manually:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start

Answer 2

Simple as that

sudo service postgresql restart

Answer 3

REVOKE CONNECT will not prevent the connections from the db owner or superuser. So if you don't want anyone to connect the db, follow command may be useful.

alter database pilot allow_connections = off;

Then use:

SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pid)
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE datname = 'pilot';

Answer 4

In my opinion there are some idle queries running in the backgroud.

1. Try showing running queries first

SELECT pid, age(clock_timestamp(), query_start), usename, query 
FROM pg_stat_activity 
WHERE query != '<IDLE>' AND query NOT ILIKE '%pg_stat_activity%' 
ORDER BY query_start desc;

2. kill idle query ( Check if they are referencing the database in question or you can kill all of them or kill a specific using the pid from the select results )

SELECT pg_terminate_backend(procpid);

Note: Killing a select query doesnt make any bad impact

Answer 5

It means another user is accessing the database. Simply restart PostgreSQL. This command will do the trick

root@kalilinux:~#sudo service postgresql restart

Then try dropping the database:

postgres=# drop database test_database;

This will do the trick.