Postgres.app Could not start on port 5432

Question

I\'m using http://postgresapp.com. In the menubar it gives the error \" Could not start on port 5432.\" Similarly if I try to start the server from the terminal, I get:

Answer 1

I had the same issues:

psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

In my case it was a corrupt host file on my mac. I was missing:

127.0.0.1   localhost

A quick easy way to check is to open terminal and type:

ping localhost

or:

scutil -r localhost

More info here Hope it helps.