PuppetDB: Problems with PID file missing

[Ken Barber]

This is probably a long shot ... but we have this ticket here for PuppetDB:

https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/browse/PDB-675

It describes a scenario where when the PID file is missing, the
service script is unable to stop the running process. Now our solution
is simple, we have a fallback to kill any java process owned by
puppetdb if the PID file is missing, so easily worked around really
... however ...

The issue I wanted to talk about though, is why this is happening.

I'm looking for people who perhaps felt this kind of 'restart' pain
during upgrade. I had heaps of people mentioning this to me on the IRC
#puppet channel a few weeks ago, but it seems to have dried up. I was
foolish not to confirm the issue there and then, as I thought it was
easily replicable but its proven more elusive.

Has someone ran into the missing PID issue? Can you help me try to
track down the issue? The only information I have is that it was
during an upgrade, and only on Debian based boxes.

Thanks.

ken.