Subject: Re: archive_active file.
To: "Anthony, Craig Talmadge" <craig@psu.edu>,
 "pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org>
References: 
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From: David Steele <david@pgmasters.net>
Message-ID: <2226e1d4-979f-3e2a-7225-cd2efa5ae5e7@pgmasters.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2020 18:30:29 -0400
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Hi Anthony,

On 9/29/20 1:40 PM, Anthony, Craig Talmadge wrote:
>     I recently built a postgresql 12 server and forgot to turn on WAL 
> archiving. I modified my postgresql.conf file and stopped/started the 
> server.  After a day and many WAL files being generated archiving did 
> not start until I found a suggestion to create and empty archive_active 
> file in my archived WAL segments directory. When I did this archiving 
> began. Does anyone know  why archiving didn't start after the stop and 
> restart and can anyone tell me that the archive_active file is a 
> specific postgresql file or is it just that the archived WAL segments 
> location has to have a file in it before archiving begins?

More detail here would be good. What archive_command did you configure?

An archive_active file is not expected by core postgres so I suspect you 
are either using an alternate distribution or an archive command that 
requires this file.

Regards,
-- 
-David
david@pgmasters.net