Re: Cluster recovery - FATAL: database files are incompatible with server. Different PG_CONTROL_VERSION for cluster and server.

On 04/17/2014 01:29 PM, Guillaume Drolet wrote:
> Dear list users,
>
> For some tests, I installed a new cluster with different parameters
> than the ones I had used a while ago to create the cluster I use for
> my day-to-day activities (let's call it my main cluster). I used
> initdb --no-locale -E UTF8 -D <new_data_dir>. Then I used pg_ctl -D
> <new_data_dir> to start my new cluster. So far so good.
>
> Then, I realized that I wanted to add a database superuser with the
> option -U to initdb so I decided to delete the newly created cluster.
> Instead, I mistakenly deleted the data directory of my main cluster
> (doh!), using Shift-Delete. I recovered the deleted data directory
> using Panda Recovery Tool and copied it back into its location (the
> location pointed to by $PGDATA).
>
> Now for the real problems: if I go in pgAdmin and try to connect to my
> cluster, I get the "server not listening" message. I also tried going
> to the Services and restarting postgresql but it says it is already
> stopped and if I try to start it, I get a message that it has started
> but then stopped because it was unused.
>
> If I try pg_ctl start, I get this message (my translation from
> French): FATAL: database files are incompatible with server. DETAIL:
> Database cluster was initialized with a PG_CONTROL_VERSION ? 16795209
> while the server was compiled with a PG_CONTROL_VERSION ? 937. HINT:
> Looks like you need initdb.
>
> I really don't know what to do and would appreciate any help, if
> anything can be done to recover my databases. My PG version is 9.3.3
> on a Windows 7 64-bit OS.

Further investigation found pg_resetxlog:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/app-pgresetxlog.html

I have never used it, so all I can do is point to the docs. I would say
that if you go this route make a copy of your $PGDATA in another
location for safe keeping in the event things go wrong.

>
> Best regards and many thanks for your advice,
>
> Guillaume
>
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com