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When installing PostgreSQL via Homebrew on Mac (OSX 10.11.6) I get the following errors:

Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully The formula
  built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local

and

initdb: file "/usr/local/share/postgresql/postgres.bki" does not exist
  This might mean you have a corrupted installation or identified the 
  wrong directory with the invocation option -L.

The /postgresql folder doesn't exist.

Not sure if it's relevant, but I already have OpenSSL 1.0.2o_2 and Readline 7.0.5 installed via Homebrew.

Does anyone know why this error occurs and how I can solve it?

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  • Had some trouble also with Postgres installing with Homebrew. Found postgresapp.com for managing different PostgreSQL versions on OSX Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 11:31
  • Thanks for the tip, struggling to find a solution to this. Will probably try that instead! Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 11:39
  • Have you had a look at the output of brew doctor? Maybe it could give you a clue. Also, could you show how exactly you install PostgreSQL via Homebrew? Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 11:49
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    The directory /usr/local/share/postgresql should contain all the symlinks to the relevant files installed by Homebrew after a successful installation. So, I guess, the question is why this directory and the symlinks do not get created in your case. I just did brew reinstall postgresql on my machine and it works fine. Did you maybe manually change the permissions of /usr/local/share? Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 11:58
  • Thanks anothernode. You're right, it was a permissions issue. Recursively sudo chowning the /user/local/share folder did the trick. Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 12:04

2 Answers 2

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In my case, I had installed libpq which prevented postgresql from linking. Unlinking libpq followed by linking postgresql fixed the issue for me.

brew unlink libpq
brew link postgresql
brew postinstall postgresql
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2 Comments

this is the same case for me
This reply deserves a medal🥇
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Managed to solve the problem. It's a permissions issue. The original answer can be found here: Homebrew: Could not symlink, /usr/local/bin is not writable

In short, perform the following commands:

sudo chown -R `whoami`:admin /usr/local/bin
sudo chown -R `whoami`:admin /usr/local/share
sudo chown -R `whoami`:admin /usr/local/opt
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1 Comment

This din't work for me. Still getting the same error.

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