PostgreSQL: "ERROR: relation "pg_catalog.pg_user" does not exist (was Re: Moving a PostgreSQL database from one server to another)

[Mauri Sahlberg]

Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:

>Hi, everyone:
>
>It appears that I have a deeper, darker problem at work here. After lots
>of help from lots of users (thanks, everyone!), my pg_dump command just
>does not work. No way, no how. My PostgreSQL server is also not logging
>to /var/log/pgsql so I'm not getting any love there, either.
>
>If I attempt the commands "\dp" or "\du" in psql, I get this:
>
>ERROR:  relation "pg_catalog.pg_user" does not exist
>
>  
>
I recommend joining postgresql-admin list. Guesses and questions:
- It seems that somehow you have goofed the database initialization but 
managed to get postmaster started and there is no working database 
cluster. Have you run initdb?
- What does psql -l tell you?
- Some of the file permissions are somehow wrong. Who owns database 
files and directories? Who do you run the postmaster as?
- What does your postgresql.conf under your database directory say about 
logging, if you have set it to log in syslog, then your log is probably 
there.
- You don't have just updated your binaries and pointed them to a 
database created with older postgresql, haven't you?
- You are out of disk space, completely.

>Surely other commands will fail as well. I have also installed
>phpPgAdmin (v.3.5.1) to attempt graphical management of the database,
>and although I can log in I do not get the next screen... there has
>clearly been an error, and it barfs with the same command: the relation
>pg_catalog.pg_user does not exist.
>
>Can anyone suggest where or how I might recreate this relation? I'm
>about to go join some of the PostgreSQL mailing lists, but it seems odd
>that only I would have this problem.
>  
>
Shut down your existing database instance and create a new database 
cluster with initdb (as the postgres user) and see if you can run 
postmaster (as the postgres user) against it.

If you actually have made successful initdb with the compatible initdb 
version you are trying to run the postmaster with or/and you have 
valuable data in the cluster, do nothing to the existing database files 
before you consult postgresql-admin list.

Regards,