Troubleshooting

This section contains some ideas for troubleshooting common problems experienced with installation.

Can’t access file “timescaledb” after installation

`

  1. Log error: could not access file "timescaledb"

`

If your PostgreSQL logs have this error preventing it from starting up, you should double check that the TimescaleDB files have been installed to the correct location. Our installation methods use pg_config to get PostgreSQL’s location. However if you have multiple versions of PostgreSQL installed on the same machine, the location pg_config points to may not be for the version you expect. To check which version TimescaleDB used:

  2. $ pg_config --version
  4. PostgreSQL 12.3

If that is the correct version, double check that the installation path is the one you’d expect. For example, for PostgreSQL 11.0 installed via Homebrew on macOS it should be /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/11.0/bin:

  2. $ pg_config --bindir
  4. /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/11.0/bin

If either of those steps is not the version you are expecting, you need to either (a) uninstall the incorrect version of PostgreSQL if you can or (b) update your PATH environmental variable to have the correct path of pg_config listed first, that is, by prepending the full path:

  2. export PATH = /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/11.0/bin:$PATH

Then, reinstall TimescaleDB and it should find the correct installation path.

Install or upgrade of TimescaleDB Toolkit fails

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  1. ERROR: extension "timescaledb_toolkit" has no update path from version "1.2" to version "1.3"

`

In some cases, when you create the TimescaleDB Toolkit extension, or upgrade it with the ALTER EXTENSION timescaledb_toolkit UPDATE command, it might fail with the above error.

This occurs if the list of available extensions does not include the version you are trying to upgrade to, and it can occur if the package was not installed correctly in the first place. To correct the problem, install the upgrade package, restart PostgreSQL, verify the version, and then attempt the update again.

Troubleshooting TimescaleDB Toolkit setup

  1. If you’re installing Toolkit from a package, check your package manager’s local repository list. Make sure the TimescaleDB repository is available and contains Toolkit. For instructions on adding the TimescaleDB repository, see the installation guides:

  2. Update your local repository list with apt update or yum update.

  3. Restart your PostgreSQL service.

  4. Check that the right version of Toolkit is among your available extensions:

    1. SELECT * FROM pg_available_extensions
    3.   WHERE name = 'timescaledb_toolkit';

    The result should look like this:

    1. -[ RECORD 1 ]-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    3. name              | timescaledb_toolkit
    5. default_version   | 1.6.0
    7. installed_version | 1.6.0
    9. comment           | Library of analytical hyperfunctions, time-series pipelining, and other SQL utilities

  5. Retry CREATE EXTENSION or ALTER EXTENSION.