[ale] Postgresql start issues

[Doug Hall]

Again, if it can't LOAD it, it can't (and won't) apply it. Any of it.
That's why that last alert message is the worst one. It's either a
PASS/FAIL process (perhaps a syntax error), or it's because the faulty
(local) setting is what's used by all of the database commands
(including pg_ctl). The reason it seemed to work since May, is because
when it was changed in June, it was changed to something that WOULDN'T
LOAD. As a result, NONE of those changes were applied, and it kept
using the settings that it had in memory. When you had to stop the
database, it then had no alternative settings when you restarted it,
so things started failing. When you corrected the problem and (I
assume) those changes were applied with pg_ctl reload, all was fine.

Doug