Is this a Postgres database?

yes

I tried restarting the container but it froze at: Mounting volume on /var/lib/containers/railwayapp/bind-mounts/f0259a67-a79f-4ccd-981c-7cf9a648a21c/vol_a8qsn2en58a2l92t

Try redeploying the database instead of restarting it.

The database is simply saying the password is invalid

Does it say something like authentication failed for user postgres?

It results in the same thing.

2026-05-12 00:18:17.500 UTC [88280] FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres"

2026-05-12 00:18:17.500 UTC [88280] DETAIL: Connection matched file "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_hba.conf" line 128: "host all all all scram-sha-256"

2026-05-12 00:18:20.779 UTC [88268] ERROR: canceling statement due to statement timeout

2026-05-12 00:18:20.779 UTC [88268] STATEMENT: /* railway:dataui / SET statement_timeout = '30s'; / railway:dataui */ SELECT table_name FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'public'

2026-05-12 00:18:20.780 UTC [88268] LOG: could not send data to client: Broken pipe

2026-05-12 00:18:20.780 UTC [88268] FATAL: connection to client lost

That was the last log entry; after that, nothing else worked.

Try this:

1. Disable all public networking on the database if you have any, as the following steps will disable user authentication
2. SSH into your database service (right click your service and select Copy SSH Command)
3. Run this command: sed -i 's/host all all all scram-sha-256/host all all ::\/0 trust/' /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_hba.conf (This will bypass user authentication)
4. Redeploy your database
5. SSH again, and run the command psql
6. Run ALTER USER postgres with password ''; where `` is the value of the variable PGPASSWORD in your Railway dashboard
7. Type exit
8. Run sed -i 's/host all all ::\/0 trust/host all all all scram-sha-256/' /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_hba.conf (This will re-enable user authentication)
9. Redeploy your database

Please create your own thread.

📭 No active deployment for '1560038d-ea05-45df-8248-05994885fbe5'

🔧 Deploy your service first, then try again

Connection to ssh.railway.com closed by remote host.

Connection to ssh.railway.com closed.

I can't connect because the container simply won't start.

Try adding a custom start command to be sleep infinity, then try SSH-ing again. Make sure to revert that after step 8.

It's now stuck in QUEUED mode even though there are no active deployments.

I left the line, I'll see.

root@e446dfef3e1e:/# psql

psql: error: connection to server at "database.railway.internal" (ipv6), port 5432 failed: Connection refused

Is the server running on that host and accepting TCP/IP connections?

I managed to initialize the database and perform the alteration; I'll test it again.

Following all the steps, it worked now.

Good to know.

Anything else before I close the thread?

Just one additional note: when you run psql and get an error, you need to execute:

su - postgres -c "/usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/pg_ctl start -D /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata"

This will make it work. If someone needs similar help, it's good to mention this.

I'll keep that in mind next time. Thanks!

It happened again out of nowhere.

2026-05-12 07:33:27.494 UTC [11845] DETAIL: Connection matched file "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_hba.conf" line 128: "host all all all scram-sha-256"

2026-05-12 07:33:32.495 UTC [11847] FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postgres"

2026-05-12 07:33:32.495 UTC [11847] DETAIL: Connection matched file "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_hba.conf" line 128: "host all all all scram-sha-256"

My Postgres volume was at 50 GB. I noticed this happened after the daily backup, and my database was already occupying 30 GB. I don't know if this interferes with anything, but I reduced it to 200 GB and repeated the process above, and it worked. Let's see if this happens again.

It's happening again, the app is still working but I saw that it went from 20 connections to 2, I really can't diagnose the problem.

Try this thing again.

Looks like the password somehow broke itself…