psql FATAL database user does not exist

Question

I m using the PostgreSql app for mac  http   postgresapp com    I ve used it in the past on other machines but it s giving me some trouble when installing on my macbook  I ve installed the application and I ran   psql -h localhost   It returns   psql  FATAL   database   lt user gt   does not exist   It seems I can t even run the console to create the database that it s attempting to find  The same thing happens when I just run   psql    or if I launch psql from the application drop down menu   Machine stats    OSX 10 8 4 psql  PostgreSQL  9 2 4   Any help is appreciated    I ve also attempted to install PostgreSql via homebrew and I m getting the same issue  I ve also read the applications documentation page that states       When Postgres app first starts up  it creates the  USER database    which is the default database for psql when none is specified  The   default user is  USER  with no password    So it would seem the application is not creating  USER however I ve installed- uninstalled-reinstalled several times now so it must be something with my machine   I found the answer but I m not sure exactly how it works as the user who answered on this thread -  Getting Postgresql Running In Mac  Database  quot postgres quot  does not exist didn t follow up  I used the following command to get psql to open    psql -d template1   I ll leave this one unanswered until someone can provide an explanation for why this works

User · Answer

I still had the issue above after installing postgresql using homebrew - I resolved it by putting  usr local bin in my path before  usr bin

User · Answer

First off  it s helpful to create a database named the same as your current use  to prevent the error when you just want to use the default database and create new tables without declaring the name of a db explicitly   Replace  skynotify  with your username   psql -d postgres -c  CREATE DATABASE skynotify ENCODING  UTF-8      -d explicitly declares which database to use as the default for SQL statements that don t explicitly include a db name during this interactive session   BASICS FOR GETTING A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHAT YOUR PostgresQL SERVER has in it   You must connect to an existing database to use psql interactively   Fortunately  you can ask psql for a list of databases   psql -l                                                List of databases                Name                 Owner    Encoding     Collate        Ctype      Access privileges  ---------------------------------- ----------- ---------- ------------- ------------- -------------------  skynotify                          skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     myapp dev                          skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     postgres                           skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     ruby-getting-started development   skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     template0                          skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c skynotify                                                                                                   skynotify CTc skynotify  template1                          skynotify   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c skynotify                                                                                                   skynotify CTc skynotify  6 rows    This does NOT start the interactive console  it just outputs a text based table to the terminal     As another answers says  postgres is always created  so you should use it as your failsafe database when you just want to get the console started to work on other databases   If it isn t there  then list the databases and then use any one of them   In a similar fashion  select tables from a database   psql -d postgres -c   dt     My  postgres  database has no tables  but any database that does will output a text based table to the terminal  standard out    And for completeness  we can select all rows from a table too   psql -d ruby-getting-started development -c  SELECT   FROM widgets         id   name   description   stock   created at   updated at  ---- ------ ------------- ------- ------------ ------------  0 rows    Even if there are zero rows returned  you ll get the field names   If your tables have more than a dozen rows  or you re not sure  it ll be more useful to start with a count of rows to understand how much data is in your database    psql -d ruby-getting-started development -c  SELECT count    FROM widgets         count  -------      0  1 row    And don t that that  1 row  confuse you  it just represents how many rows are returned by the query  but the 1 row contains the count you want  which is 0 in this example   NOTE  a db created without an owner defined will be owned by the current user

User · Answer

Not sure if it is already added in the answers  Anatolii Stepaniuk answer was very helpful which is the following   psql -U Username postgres   when you have no databases yet

User · Answer

As the createdb documentation states      The first database is always created by the initdb command when the data storage area is initialized    This database is called postgres    So if certain OS postgresql distributions do that differently  it is certainly not the default standard  just verified that initdb on openSUSE 13 1 creates the DB  postgres   but not   lt user gt     Long story short  psql -d postgres is expected to be used when using a user other than  postgres    Obviously the accepted answer  running createdb to create a DB named like the user  works as well  but creates a superfluous DB

User · Answer

Post installation of postgres  in my case version is 12 2  I did run the below command createdb     createdb  whoami     psql  psql  12 2  Type  help  for help   macuser

User · Answer

By default  postgres tries to connect to a database with the same name as your user   To prevent this default behaviour  just specify user and database   psql -U Username DatabaseName

User · Answer

I faced the same error when I trying to open postgresql on mac  psql  FATAL   database  user  does not exist   I found this simple command to solve it   method1    createdb --owner postgres --encoding utf8 user   and type   psql   Method 2   psql -d postgres

User · Answer

Had the same problem  a simple psql -d postgres did it  Type the command in the terminal

User · Answer

you can set the database name you want to connect to in env variable PGDATABASE database name  If you dont set this psql default database name is as username  after setting this you don t have to createdb

User · Answer

I tried some of these solutions  but they didn t quite work  though they were very much on the right track    In the end my error was       FATAL  password authentication failed for user    when I ran the following command  psql   So then I ran these two commands   dropdb   createdb     NOTE  this will remove the db  but I didn t need it and for some reason I could no longer access pqsl  so I removed and recreated it  Then psql worked again

User · Answer

Try using-  psql -d postgres  I was also facing the same issue when I ran psql

User · Answer

This is a basic misunderstanding  Simply typing   pgres  will result in this response  pgres  lt db name gt    It will succeed without error if the user has the permissions to access the db  One can go into the details of the exported environment variables but that s unnecessary    this is too basic to fail for any other reason

User · Answer

It appears that your package manager failed to create the database named  user for you   The reason that  psql -d template1   works for you is that template1 is a database created by postgres itself  and is present on all installations  You are apparently able to log in to template1  so you must have some rights assigned to you by the database   Try this at a shell prompt   createdb   and then see if you can log in again with   psql -h localhost   This will simply create a database for your login user  which I think is what you are looking for   If createdb fails  then you don t have enough rights to make your own database  and you will have to figure out how to fix the homebrew package

User · Answer

From the terminal  just Run the command on your command prompt window   Not inside psql     createdb  lt user gt    And then try to run postgres again

User · Answer

Had this problem when installing postgresql via homebrew   Had to create the default  postgres  super user with      createuser --interactive postgres answer y to for super user      createuser --interactive user answer y to for super user

User · Answer

Login as default user  sudo -i -u postgres Create new User  createuser --interactive When prompted for role name  enter linux username  and select Yes to superuser question  Still logged in as postgres user  create a database  createdb  lt username from step 3 gt  Confirm error s  are gone by entering  psql at the command prompt  Output should show psql  x x x  Type  help  for help

User · Answer

Since this question is the first in search results  I ll put a different solution for a different problem here anyway  in order not to have a duplicate title   The same error message can come up when running a query file in psql without specifying a database  Since there is no use statement in postgresql  we have to specify the database on the command line  for example   psql -d db name -f query file sql

User · Answer

had the problem with using the JDBC driver  so one just has to add the database  maybe redundantly depending on the tool you may use  after the host name in the URL  e g  jdbc postgres    lt host  port  gt   lt db-name gt   further details are documented here  http   www postgresql org docs 7 4 static jdbc-use html JDBC-CONNECT

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This error can also occur if the environment variable PGDATABASE is set to the name of a database that does not exist   On OSX  I saw the following error while trying to launch psql from the Postgress app menu   psql  FATAL   database  otherdb  does not exist  The solution to the error was to remove export PGDATABASE otherdb from    bash profile   Further  if PGUSER is set to something other than your username  the following error will occur   psql  FATAL   role  note  does not exist  The solution is to remove export PGUSER notme from    bash profile

User · Answer

Login using default template1 database    psql -d template1  template1    l    List of databases    Name       Owner    Encoding     Collate        Ctype       Access privileges   ----------- --------- ---------- ------------- ------------- ---------------------  postgres    gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     template0   gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c gogasca                                                                         gogasca CTc gogasca  template1   gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c gogasca                                                                         gogasca CTc gogasca  3 rows    Create a database with your userId   template1   CREATE DATABASE gogasca WITH OWNER gogasca ENCODING  UTF8   CREATE DATABASE   Quit and then login again  template1    q gonzo   gogasca  psql -h localhost psql  9 4 0  Type  help  for help   gogasca    l                                 List of databases    Name       Owner    Encoding     Collate        Ctype       Access privileges   ----------- --------- ---------- ------------- ------------- ---------------------  gogasca     gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     postgres    gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8     template0   gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c gogasca                                                                         gogasca CTc gogasca  template1   gogasca   UTF8       en US UTF-8   en US UTF-8    c gogasca                                                                         gogasca CTc gogasca  4 rows

User · Answer

Connect to postgres via existing superuser   Create a Database by the name of user you are connecting through to postgres   create database username    Now try to connect via username

[postgresql] psql: FATAL: database "<user>" does not exist

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