If you don't use -w, then pg_ctl doesn't wait around to see whether the postmaster started or not. It'd probably be a good idea for it to issue a less positive message in this case, maybe only "postmaster launched".
I also wonder why -w isn't the default.
I've also noticed that on our production 7.3.4 server logging to syslog, that if I change the postgresql.conf to enable log_statement, and then do pg_ctl reload, it works, but then when I disable it again, pg_ctl reload does not cause postgres to pick up the changes.
I haven't done too much investigation here in to the exact problem, but there is something odd going on...
Chris
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