Thread: Restoring pg_dump's made using COPY commands
Hi, I'm trying to restore two dumps, one from 7.1.3 and the other from a 6.5.3 series PgSQL server. These dumps were both made using standard 'pg_dump > output' commands (specifying the host where needed on one of them). When I run the database restore by doing execute-file in psql, piping the file to psql, or even attempting pg_restore (whcih doesn't work on these plain text databases), I receive messages pertaining to: invalid command \N invalid command \. parse error at the end of line <occasionally messages about missing fields> However this dump just came from a pg_dump, so it really should be working. I've tried every combination of pg_dump and psql versions from 7.4.1, 7.3.3, 7.1.3, 6.5.3 in order to get this to work right without any luck. Can anyone help me out with what is wrong? I'm looking to make this a backup method, and if I can't restore the data, it doesn't do me much good (and I'm trying to restore some existing data). Ultimately want to move them all up to 7.4.x Any ideas as to what causes these errors? Anything I can do to fix the output of pg_dump? Thanks! -Mike _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
Mike Miller wrote: > Hi, > I'm trying to restore two dumps, one from 7.1.3 and the other from a 6.5.3 > series PgSQL server. These dumps were both made using standard 'pg_dump > > output' commands (specifying the host where needed on one of them). When I > run the database restore by doing execute-file in psql, piping the file to > psql, or even attempting pg_restore (whcih doesn't work on these plain text > databases), I receive messages pertaining to: > invalid command \N > invalid command \. > parse error at the end of line > <occasionally messages about missing fields> > > However this dump just came from a pg_dump, so it really should be working. > I've tried every combination of pg_dump and psql versions from 7.4.1, 7.3.3, > 7.1.3, 6.5.3 in order to get this to work right without any luck. > > Can anyone help me out with what is wrong? I'm looking to make this a > backup method, and if I can't restore the data, it doesn't do me much good > (and I'm trying to restore some existing data). Ultimately want to move > them all up to 7.4.x > > Any ideas as to what causes these errors? Anything I can do to fix the > output of pg_dump? Strange. We used \N for NULLs way back in 6.5 and earlier. I wonder if you have carriage returns in the file accidentally. Any way to see the lines that are failing? -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
I had this problem just yesterday. I found it was due to an error a few lines before my copy command started. -----Original Message----- From: pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Momjian Sent: Wednesday, 18 February 2004 2:49 AM To: Mike Miller Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Restoring pg_dump's made using COPY commands Mike Miller wrote: > Hi, > I'm trying to restore two dumps, one from 7.1.3 and the other from a > 6.5.3 > series PgSQL server. These dumps were both made using standard 'pg_dump > > output' commands (specifying the host where needed on one of them). When I > run the database restore by doing execute-file in psql, piping the file to > psql, or even attempting pg_restore (whcih doesn't work on these plain text > databases), I receive messages pertaining to: > invalid command \N > invalid command \. > parse error at the end of line > <occasionally messages about missing fields> > > However this dump just came from a pg_dump, so it really should be > working. > I've tried every combination of pg_dump and psql versions from 7.4.1, 7.3.3, > 7.1.3, 6.5.3 in order to get this to work right without any luck. > > Can anyone help me out with what is wrong? I'm looking to make this a > backup method, and if I can't restore the data, it doesn't do me much good > (and I'm trying to restore some existing data). Ultimately want to move > them all up to 7.4.x > > Any ideas as to what causes these errors? Anything I can do to fix > the > output of pg_dump? Strange. We used \N for NULLs way back in 6.5 and earlier. I wonder if you have carriage returns in the file accidentally. Any way to see the lines that are failing? -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly