a month ago
All the AI agent offers me is to delete all the data (thousands of data) and create a new database. It insists there's no other way. But I have clients, I have hundreds of courses on the platform!
I deployed a PostgreSQL database using the official Railway template postgres-ssl:18. The service crashed immediately with a catatonit initialization error—a well-known Docker image bug, NOT a user configuration issue.
When I attempted recovery by creating a new PostgreSQL service with a standard postgres:18-alpine image and remounting the original volume, the new instance cannot authenticate to the existing database because:
The old volume contains a database initialized with the same password
The new PostgreSQL service auto-generates a different password
This creates an irreconcilable password mismatch—FATAL: password authentication failed
The core problem: Railway's postgres-ssl:18 template image is broken and caused data to become inaccessible. I should not have to manually recover from a broken official template.
Current situation:
Production database with live user data is inaccessible
Dependent services cannot deploy
I have no way to reset the password or recover the data without Railway's intervention
What I need:
Immediate assistance recovering the data from the original volume
An explanation of why the official postgres-ssl:18 template is broken
A fix or replacement template that actually works.
I'm very afraid of losing all my data.
6 Replies
Status changed to Open Railway • about 1 month ago
a month ago
Try this:
- Disable all public networking on the database if you have any, as the following steps will disable user authentication
- SSH into your database service (right click your service and select
Copy SSH Command) - 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) - Redeploy your database
- SSH again, and run the command
psql - Run
ALTER USER postgres with password '<PASSWORD>';where<PASSWORD>is the value of the variablePGPASSWORDin your Railway dashboard - Type
exit - 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) - Redeploy your database
a month ago
All the data is lost. Hundreds of courses and users. Thousands of euros spent on creation. I'm shocked. I was sure the railway had backups for this kind of thing.
a month ago
Have you tried the steps I wrote above with the old volume attached to the new Postgres service?
0x5b62656e5d
Have you tried the steps I wrote above with the old volume attached to the new Postgres service?
a month ago
But this won't help in my case - the problem is not the password, but that the tables don't exist.
0x5b62656e5d
You said you still have the original volume...?
a month ago
When you lose your business due to an infrastructure error, it's time to change it. I needed Railway so I didn't have to worry about deployment and data security. In today's situation (I've already read the forums – it's a global problem), the only option is to simply change the infrastructure.