macOS external drive - Omnis DataBridge / Postgres issues

[Nick Renders]

Hello,

We are having intermittent issues with external drives on macOS Sonoma (14) and Sequoia (15).
Sometimes, the privileges of certain ( or maybe all? ) files seem to momentarily change.

The issue is most noticeable when we have a Postgres data directory located on an external volume. The Postgres service is running fine, then all of sudden, we are no longer able to connect to the database. In the Postgres log, the following is logged every minute:

	2025-02-10 22:12:06.198 CET [10267] LOG:  could not open file "postmaster.pid": Operation not permitted; continuing anyway
	2025-02-10 22:13:06.223 CET [10267] LOG:  could not open file "postmaster.pid": Operation not permitted; continuing anyway
	2025-02-10 22:14:06.225 CET [10267] LOG:  could not open file "postmaster.pid": Operation not permitted; continuing anyway
	2025-02-10 22:15:06.227 CET [10267] LOG:  could not open file "postmaster.pid": Operation not permitted; continuing anyway
	2025-02-10 22:16:06.230 CET [10267] LOG:  could not open file "postmaster.pid": Operation not permitted; continuing anyway
	...

This continues until we restart the Postgres service (pg_ctl restart).

The same issue occurs with Omnis Datafiles: when we run an Omnis DataBridge with the datafiles located on an external volume, at some point, the files are no longer accessible. The ODB service continues running, but trying to open a Datafile will result in the following error in messages.txt of the ODB:

	Loading user config file...done
	Client IP = 127.0.0.1: Omnis Bridge Error: Unable to open specified segment
	System Error 1 : Operation not permitted
	Loading user config file...done
	Client IP = 127.0.0.1: Omnis Bridge Error: Unable to open specified segment
	System Error 1 : Operation not permitted
	Omnis Bridge Error: Error while waiting for messages
	System Error 54 : Connection reset by peer

Restarting the ODB service fixes the issue again.


We've noticed this issue with 3 different volumes, two being a Promise Pegasus RAID, the third being a simple SSD connected with USB-C. The servers have been both Intel and Silicon Macs (i7, M1, M2) running Sonoma or Sequoia.
The external volumes have "Ignore ownership" turned on in the Info window in the Finder. We have tried adjusting the user privileges/ownership of specific folders, but no change.

The issue is very intermittent. The server can be running great for a couple of hours, then it happens out of the blue. As you can see in the Postgres log above, it first occurred at 22:12, when nothing else was happening on the machine.


Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Any ideas or suggestions?


Kind regards,

Nick Renders