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psycopg2 "could not connect to server" error on Ubuntu

Date: 2010-06-08  |   Tags: django, error, notestoself, sql   |   1 Comment

While trying to run python manage.py syncdb with Django 1.2.1, psycopg2 2.2.1 and PostgreSQL 8.4 on Ubuntu Lucid, I got the following error saying I couldn't connect to the database. 

$ python manage.py syncdb
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 438, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 218, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 347, in handle
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 52, in handle_noargs
    cursor = connection.cursor()
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/__init__.py", line 75, in cursor
    cursor = self._cursor()
  File "/home/saltycrane/lib/python-environments/saltycrane121/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/db/backends/postgresql_psycopg2/base.py", line 136, in _cursor
    self.connection = Database.connect(**conn_params)
psycopg2.OperationalError: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
        Is the server running locally and accepting
        connections on Unix domain socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"?

I tried connecting via psql and that worked. I looked in /var/run/postgresql/ and found: 

$ ls -lA /var/run/postgresql
total 8
srwxrwxrwx 1 postgres postgres  0 2010 06/08 21:29 .s.PGSQL.5433
-rw------- 1 postgres postgres 34 2010 06/08 21:29 .s.PGSQL.5433.lock
-rw------- 1 postgres postgres  5 2010 06/08 21:29 8.4-main.pid

So it turns out my Postgres server is running on port 5433, but Django (psycopg2) expects to find it at 5432 by default. So I changed the port number to 5433 in my settings.py and it worked.

Note: I looks like the reason my Postgres server was running on port 5433 instead of 5432 is because I previously had PostgreSQL 8.3 installed on my machine and there were configuration files left in /etc/postgresql/8.3/ The port setting is configured in /etc/postgresql/8.x/main/postgresql.conf.

1 Comment — feed icon Comments feed for this post


#1 LaundroMat commented on 2010-08-30:

Thanks! I was tearing my hair out over this one.

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