Importing Postgres 7.1.1 DBs into Postgres 7.3.2

A few weeks ago, I posted regarding some odd errors in postgresql.
Since then, a few things have been happening, which my coworker and I
have been discussing.

The data in the tables themselves are becoming corrupt. Right now, I
have happy database. Last night, at midnight, information moved from
some tables and went into another table. Somewhere in there, the
destination tables (info from 3 or so tables is taken and put into the
final table), something became corrupt, and I could no longer access all
parts of my destination table. I couldn't do a 'SELECT * FROM
my_table", nor could I pg_dump it, which means that my backups will fail
(since I don't back up the db files, but dump files).

We've had other issues with this before, but not like this. My coworker
says, "Postgres doesn't have 'bad data'. It is either acceptable or
unacceptable. If it is unacceptable, you will see it".

Granted, I say, but then, how do you explain what is happening?

Anyway, on with the show. So now I'm trying to import my databases into
the 'new' version of postgres I have running, but I'm having problems.
Going from 7.1.1 to 7.3.2 isn't easy, I guess, because I'm getting lots
of errors:
ERROR: Column "date_entered" is of type date but default expression is
of type text

And lots of

invalid command \N
invalid command \N

In the end, I have nearly all my tables, but none of my tables have data
in them. Is there a conversion I must do beforehand? I assumed
(incorrectly, evidently) that dumpfiles are all the same...

Any help would be swell.

Adam

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Adam Bultman
Email: adam(dot)bultman(at)iconideas(dot)com

Phone: 616-990-4941
http://www.iconideas.com