Postgres database unreachable — permission denied on startup after redeploy
oneore
HOBBYOP

a month ago

My gapperut_db (Postgres 18) service shows "Online" but is completely unreachable from:

  • My app (gapperut)
  • VS Code
  • Railway UI

Latest deployment logs show permission errors during startup:

  • collation-refresh: psql: error: /tmp/collation-refresh.K6Uuzm.sql: Permission denied
  • database system was not properly shut down; automatic recovery in progress

Connection attempts timeout indefinitely. Redeploying didn't fix it.

Service: gapperut_db (ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18)

Project: geperuts_app

Environment: production (EU West)

$10 Bounty

1 Replies

Railway
BOT

a month ago

This thread has been opened as a bounty so the community can help solve it.

Status changed to Open Railway about 1 month ago


code-breaker16
FREE

a month ago

The /tmp folder inside the container lost write permissions, causing Railway's startup script (collation-refresh.sql) to crash silently. The container stays 'Online', but Postgres gets stuck recovering in a loop and never opens its connection port.

Fix: Add DEBUG_MODE=true in environment variables to access Railway's container terminal, run chmod 1777 /tmp to restore write permissions, then remove the variable and redeploy.


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